


The Blood Sun

by GalacticDefender4679



Series: Elements of Heroism [1]
Category: Dracula - Bram Stoker, My Little Pony: Equestria Girls
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 01:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18982000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalacticDefender4679/pseuds/GalacticDefender4679
Summary: An astrological event has brought the great Dracula back to life, and instead of resuming his plan to conquer England, he has instead turned his gaze to America, starting with Canterlot City. And his first prey? Sunset Shimmer…





	1. The Vampire Rises

“… _And finally, tomorrow is the day America will be under the light of the Blood Sun; a legendary astrological event which only occurs every 400 years where the sun will appear red to us on Earth. Many fanatics around the world have insisted that this event will bring about the return of Count Dracula, but at the risk of editorializing, I think I speak for all my fellow citizens of Canterlot when I say; we’ve faced magic, we can handle an old vampire._ ” A hand moved and pressed the mute button on the TV remote, letting the news anchor’s mouth move without letting them listen to it.

“Come on Pinkie, you’ve got to be kidding,” Rainbow Dash was obviously not in a very good mood, even though the Rainbooms had just wrapped up their band practice earlier. “Equestrian Magic, I’m willing to agree with. Accept even. But vampires?”

“It could happen,” Pinkie Pie had always had her head in the clouds, but this was just a little too much, even for her friends. “Sunset, back me up here. Vampires are real, right?”

“I honestly don’t know Pinkie,” Sunset Shimmer scratched the back of her neck to ponder. “I’ve never seen a real vampire, here _or_ in Equestria.”

“Well, I know I can agree with Rainbow Dash,” Twilight adjusted her glasses as she slung her backpack onto her shoulders. “Vampires don’t exist.”

“Well in my mind, it don’t matter if ya believe they exist or not,” said Applejack. “Ye’re still gonna wanna keep some sorta holy symbol on ya, just to be safe.”

“Darling, I never knew you to be the superstitious type,” said Rarity, in a sort-of surprise.

“I’m not,” Applejack pulled the brim of her hat down so that the others could see her bright green eyes narrow in seriousness. “I’m cautious.”

Fluttershy was staying quiet for the duration of this conversation as the thought of vampires actually existing was almost too much for her, and she was already wracking her brain with plans to keep herself safe.

Sunset just rolled her eyes. “Look whatever, tomorrow’s going to be completely fine,” she said. “No crazy magic, no power-obsessed supervillains, no vampires. So let’s just get through it and when nothing weird happens, we can all agree to drop this vampire talk, okay?” The other girls all agreed and went their separate ways, leaving for their homes.

Sunset was the last to leave since she had apparently lost the keys to her motorcycle in the hallway and had to go back and find them. Once she had, she was just leaving when she accidentally bumped into someone, knocking her to the floor.

“Whoa! Sorry Sunset,” She knew that voice anywhere; looking up, she saw her ex-boyfriend Flash standing over her holding out a hand. Sunset would never admit it out loud, especially not to her friends, but she actually did like Flash a bit, even when she was her old power-obsessed self.

“Thanks, Flash,” she said as she took his hand and pulled herself up, trying her best to hide a small blush. “What’re you still doing here?”

“Ah, needed to get my guitar,” he said, pointing to the case slung over his shoulder. “You?”

“Dropped my keys,” said Sunset, jingling the keyring she now had clipped to her vest.

The two stood in an awkward silence for a few minutes before Flash broke it, first by clearing his throat and smiling at his ex. “So uh… you wanna get outta here?”

“Yeah,” she said as the two walked out toward the door. “Hey, did you hear about this whole ‘Blood Sun’ thing? Supposedly, it’s going to make Dracula walk the earth again.”

“Pfft. That’s just a legend,” he replied, brushing it off. “I mean cmon. Dracula? Look Sunset, if- and I can’t emphasize this ‘if’ hard enough- _if_ it turns out to be true, this school’s handled stuff like… well, you… on a daily basis.” Sunset smirked at that little gem. “Why can’t we handle him?”

“I know right? That’s what I told the others,” said Sunset as they finally made it out to the parking lot, just in time to see the golden sun beginning to set over the horizon. They wouldn’t see it in that color again for 48 hours, so they decided to head home, quickly. With that in mind, they both left on their own individual rides. Sunset had been riding her motorcycle for a while now so she didn’t need a helmet, and she thought the evening wind through her hair felt great. Looking around, she could see people apparently planning for the Day of the Blood Sun; pasting small bat-cutouts in their windows and making them look not quite so idyllic and quaint.

Her evening drive was suddenly slowed down when she realized her speed was almost identical to her racing heartbeat. She quickly slowed down to just under the speed limit before she got to thinking; she had hung out with Flash plenty after her class had gotten back from Camp Everfree, with him even sitting in on a few of the band’s rehearsal sessions, but it wasn’t until recently that the emotions she thought she had been faking in her relationship with him had resurfaced, confusing her deeply.

It was only a fifteen-minute drive from the school to her large house and it only took her a few more minutes, three tops, to park and secure her bike next to the house before she went inside; it was a simple split-level on the edge of the east side of town with her bedroom and bathroom in the upper area which was built almost like a loft and living space and kitchen on the lower level, which was only partially sunken into the ground. She had always liked split-level housing; it felt like everything was within arms’ reach. After getting her homework done early and eating a simple salad for dinner, she decided it would be prudent to go to bed early tonight as well, just to be safe. And without a single other thought, she started to change but as she was pulling off her vest, she found a small folded slip of paper in her pocket. Opening it up, she saw it was from Flash and it said “Hey, I know this is kinda sudden, but if you’re up for it, I think we should get back together. If you agree, let me know and we’ll plan something”.

Naturally, Sunset blushed when she found it; she had been thinking about asking Flash if _he_ wanted to date _her_ again for ages now and he had managed to beat her to the punch. She decided to sleep on it as she changed into her usual purple pajamas and pulled herself into bed, quickly pushing any thoughts of vampires the girls had graced her with out of her mind before she drifted peacefully away to sleep.

 

**Meanwhile…**

 

As the sun’s rays moved across the planet, they took on a strange red hue turning the day’s sun into what appeared to be a perpetual dawn. As they reached central Romania, in the Transylvania region, the unusual rays shown through the windows of a large castle on a mountain, reaching all the way into the dungeons where they washed over an old oak coffin with a dried bloody handprint on the lid.

Once the rays reached their way to this print, it started to give off an unholy glow allowing the lid to slide off and reveal the great vampire just as Abraham Van Helsing had left him; the pale, aged, hairy man one would not usually think of when imagining the greatest vampire of them all. Though he did still have the mark in his chest from where Jonathan Harker had personally stabbed the wooden stake into him, though the stake itself was now gone by the same magic which had allowed the vampire to open his coffin himself and shoot his blood-red eyes open.

“Ahhh…” he growled hungrily as he floated himself out of the coffin. “At long last…” Feeling his face, he was surprised to feel that even after 200 years of faux death, his hair had grown to nearly eclipse his body. “Hmm… I’ll have to rectify this.” With that (as well as the fact that vampires like him could only barely see their reflection) in mind, he gathered up his hair and started to wander the castle. “Verona! Aleera! Marishka! Where are you, my brides?” Finally, he did come upon the bodies of three once-gorgeous women; two dark-haired and one blond, but all three as dead as he had once been. He decided to try moving their remains into the light coming through the window, but they still stayed dead. Then he noticed the strange marks they all had carved into their sternums and recognized them.

“Hmph. Van Helsing,” Dracula growled to himself. “I should’ve expected this from him. No matter, my brides. I can assure you that you will be avenged.” Moving instead to the large bedchamber he had once held Jonathon Harker in, he looked in the mirror; squinting at his barely visible reflection as he slashed his hair to a more manageable length with a large knife. Once it was gone, he noticed that his clothes were horribly ratty and his skin was wrinkled and age-spotty. “Mm. Perhaps I should have a good meal before I return to England.” But then he realized something. “No. Van Helsing may still live. And if so, I cannot risk going back there. Perhaps I should investigate the homeland of that other man they had with them. What was his name again, Morris? Yes, that sounds right.” And thus the great vampire came to his resolution; if he could not have England, he would help himself to America…

 **At the end of most of these chapters, I'll be explaining the backstory of characters I mention; starting with Quincy P. Morris; basically a living personification of Texas (with Lucy Westenra {who I’ll get to at a later date} even saying he’s from there, making things even funnier later on) and upon reading his letter to psychologist Dr. John Seward in chapter 5, we readers learn that Mr. Bram Stoker had never spoken to an American in his life, let alone a Texan and especially not before he wrote Dracula.** **Also Quincy died while they were putting Dracula down in the first place, so… yeah.**


	2. Blood

Sunset’s alarm clock rattled into screeching life at the usual appointed time, bringing her back to the land of the living in a sense of anger. Giving the button a resounding smack to silence the noise, she dragged herself out of bed and threw open the curtains of her window to see that the sun did indeed appear red on the horizon. “ _Okay, that’s freakish. Definitely giving me vampire fiction vibes,_ ” she thought, but then she shook her head. “ _Ugh! Cmon Sunset, get it together. Just because you heard about that on the news doesn’t mean you can believe it. I mean for all you know, those people who believe it could be a cult._ ” With that sentiment in mind, she gathered up the school supplies she had forgotten to clean up the night before, got dressed and left for her bike. But then she felt the slip of paper in her pocket again and remembered what it had said, making her blush as she mounted her bike.

“ _Am I seriously considering this?_ ” she thought. “ _Can I really handle it? I mean sure, Flash is nice. And smart. And funny. And I swear to Celestia he could grind meat on his abs- No! No! Cmon Sunset, focus._ ” But the only thing she could find herself able to focus on was Flash. Then she heard someone clear their throat nearby, suddenly waking herself from her daydreaming stupor. Looking straight ahead, she saw an older man with black hair flecked with gray, pale skin and painfully apparent red eyes under his thick dark glasses. He was wearing an old-fashioned black opera suit with gloves and was holding what looked like a map of town in one hand and an apparently _very_ old suitcase in the other hand.

“Are you alright ma’am?” he asked in an unusual accent.

“Uh yeah,” she said, quickly sitting up from her slumped position on her bike. “Yeah fine, just thinking about something at school. Can I help you?”

“I was simply looking for this uh… Shady Oaks establishment,” he said, glancing at the map. “Do you know how I can get there from here?”

“The motel? Yeah, I know the place,” said Sunset, pointing left down the street with her thumb. “It’s just down the road. Fifth building down across 9th Street.” But then she noticed that his eyes weren’t meeting hers. In fact, to her, they seemed more focused on her body. “Hey. Buddy. Eyes up here.”

“Hm? Oh I’m sorry,” said the man. “It’s just that… You seem very athletic.”

“Thanks,” said Sunset suspiciously as she reached for the handlebars. “Sorry, what was your name again?”

“Vladislous Dragulia, at your service,” said the man. “And you are…?”

“Sunset Shimmer,” she said, checking her watch. Seeing she had only twenty-five minutes left before the first bell, she turned on the engine and revved it up. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta get to school before I’m late.” With that, she drove out past him toward the school.

The red sun made the drive over a bit creepier, especially after that little interaction. Call her crazy, but there was something… _off_ … about that Dragulia guy, especially combined with the strange red light of the sun. Something that made her feel the need to glance over her shoulder every few seconds. Thankfully this strange sense started to disappear once she drove up to the school. With the first bell imminent, the students were starting to move toward the building and she was quickly among them, slipping into the building and walking to her locker. Once she had stowed her equipment and gotten what she needed for her science class, she walked toward the classroom and saw Flash walking toward the room as well.

“Hey Sunny,” he said. “Man, the sun is really weird huh?”

“No kidding,” said Sunset, looking out the classroom window at the light. It was almost 8:00 in the morning and the sky still looked like it was dawn. Then she smirked at him. “By the way, I found the note you slipped me. And… yeah. That sounds good.”

“Great. So Whaddaya say, dinner next week?” asked Flash.

“Yeah, sounds good,” said Sunset. “But let’s try and keep it on the downlow to start, okay?”

“Sure,” said Flash, understanding where she was coming from. With that, they sat down and started class. Later on, at lunch, Sunset still seemed to feel uneasy about what happened earlier and still felt the need to look around before she made her way to the lunch table with the girls.

“You okay, Sunset?” asked Applejack. Sunset’s eyes seemed drawn to the Catholic cross the cowgirl had draped around her neck, but she still managed to answer.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Some older guy just stopped me earlier this morning, wanted directions to the motel. Something about him seemed kind of off.”

“‘Sirens’ off or another kind of off?” asked Pinkie jovially.

“Well that’s just it,” said Sunset as she started eating. “I’m not really sure how to describe it. Just… off.”

“What did he look like?” asked Twilight.

Sunset gave a dry chuckle. “Like an actor from an old Dracula movie who forgot to take his makeup off,” she replied. “And he had an accent. Sounded sorta European, but I can’t place exactly where.”

“Probably just some wacko who wants to scare people into thinking Dracula really _has_ returned,” said Rainbow. Sunset really wanted to believe that was true, but something in the back of her mind told her that wasn’t likely. It was almost like she could hear that man’s accented voice in the back of her mind.

Suddenly she glanced up and saw the unmistakable red-eyed silhouette of Dragulia in the hallway and grew a bit scared. “Well if that’s the case, then he’s doing a really good job of it,” she said. Then without thinking, she got up and raced toward the form. He quickly slipped away down the hall, but Sunset was still able to keep pace, seeing that he was now wearing what looked like a clichéd black opera cape. Then he quickly turned a corner with Sunset following to see… nothing. “What the heck?” The others quickly gathered around her, obviously confused.

“Sunset darling, what’s wrong?” asked Rarity, a bit winded by the long run.

“I… I swear I just saw him…” Sunset was still confused herself; she _had_ seen him, right? Whatever the case, she decided to try and leave it on the back-burner for now as she and the others went back to the lunchroom.

What they didn’t see was a strange black mist slipping out of a nearby locker and reforming on the roof into the same man Sunset had met earlier that same day. And now he was even more bent on getting a good meal.

Later that day, school had finally ended and the others had all left. Sunset stayed behind however, trying her best to find Dragulia. She knew he had still had to be there, she just wasn’t sure where. Looking around, she still didn’t find any sign of him until she saw someone walking into the library. This was her chance; carefully slipping toward the door to the library, she saw someone’s silhouette in the darkened shelves of the fiction section. Knowing yellow light would hurt a vampire, she slunk to the door and turned on her phone’s flashlight, shining it down the shelves to illuminate…

“Flash?” asked Sunset, seeing her ex standing in the shelves with an arm in front of his eyes.

“Do you mind?” he asked, squinting under his arm. “Trying to find something here.”

“Find what?” asked Sunset as she walked down and dimmed her phone’s light.

“Well, call me superstitious but just in case that whole Dracula thing _is_ real, we should probably know how to handle him just to be safe,” said Flash, looking through the shelves’ inventory. “I know I saw something here that- Ah, there it is.” Finding what he was looking for, he carefully pulled the purple leather-bound book off into his hands to see the gold-stitched title.

“‘Powers and Weaknesses of History’s Greatest Vampires’?” asked Sunset, reading the title. And below it, surrounded in silver stitching was a picture of a gold chalice running over with what looked like blood.

“Yeah. Crazy right?” asked Flash. Sunset was about to agree, but she could still feel Dragulia’s red eyes burning into her so she just shrugged. Flash noticed her unease however and grew concerned. “Hey, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said, convincingly covering her lie before she left the building. Flash was still a bit suspicious, but he was sure it was nothing she couldn’t handle.

But oh, how wrong he was. When Sunset found her way home, she saw something honestly rather frightened her; her bedroom window was open. Thankfully, she knew she had a stun gun in her desk drawer.

Quickly she moved to grab it but felt something on her shoulder as she was rifling through her drawer. Once she did feel it however, she managed to grab her stun-gun and turned to whoever it was, ready to pull the trigger, but she didn’t see anyone there. “What the hell?” Sunset was naturally very confused and very frightened, her heart rate pounding like it was ready to bound from her chest and run a marathon around town. “I-I know you’re here. C-Come on out or I’ll-OUCH!” Her statement was cut short by a sharp pain in her neck. The initial pain locked her body as she felt her blood leaving her body in one long draught, leaving her light-headed within a matter of seconds. She quickly unfroze and managed to get in a good punch over her left shoulder, evidently breaking the nose of the offender who Sunset whipped around to see was… no one. Whoever had just attacked her and left her _at least_ a liter low on blood was apparently Batman or at least someone trained by him; suddenly appearing on the edges of their targets’ senses and disappearing while said target’s back was turned.

“ _Ugh. Okay, definitely too big **and** too painful to be a mosquito. But I swear if that was a bat…_” Sunset’s train of thought was interrupted, and her theory confirmed, by the sight of a rather large black vampire-bat fluttering out the open window. Sunset quickly slammed that window shut and locked it to prevent it from returning for seconds before she moved her hand to her neck. “ _Thank Celestia I just got my rabies vaccine._ ” She pulled her hand away from the wound, finding only two dots of blood about as wide as a human-canine. An _elongated_ human-canine.

She was a bit lightheaded, sure; after all, that bat had apparently managed to get a good meal out of her. And rabies or no, the bitemark felt like it was on fire. She almost thought that bat was Dracula or at least one of his servants, but she shook it off and forced it into her mind that it was just an unusually programmed (in a manner of speaking) vampire-bat. Aside from the aforementioned pain and lightheadedness as well as unrelenting anger toward that particular bat, she actually felt great. Great enough that, after bandaging the wound, she set to her homework and then went to bed, tonight wearing a pale blue nightgown Rarity had given her for the anniversary of her reformation the month before.

Elsewhere, Dracula stood on the top of a high billboard, snapping his nose into place after Sunset broke it. “Gah!” he growled as he felt the bone realign. “Hoo! And I thought Ms. Murray had a fire to her.” He ran his tongue over his lips and along his fangs, making him smirk. “Still, she will make a powerful servant. Once the initial stages wear off.” With that, he flew off back toward the motel from whence he would plan his conquest of America.

**Now on to Ms. Murray, naturally _Mina_ Murray, later known as Mina _Harker_ ; an intelligent self-assured young woman (a rare thing indeed in Victorian romance novella, lemme tell ya) and main character Jonathan Harker’s wife later on in the book. Of course, Dracula doesn’t know about her taking her husband’s surname as he was put down before they were married.**


	3. Consumption

The golden sun had returned to the sky the next day, heartily welcomed by everyone in town for not being under a creepy red light anymore. Twilight’s eyes were still adjusting to the light as she approached the girls at the outside bleachers during their off period, but even with her eyes adjusting, she could see a significant lack of red and gold among them.

“Hey, where’s Sunset?” she asked.

“Dunno,” said Applejack, still wearing that cross necklace from yesterday. “We haven’t seen her all day.”

“This is rather odd,” said Rarity, looking at her watch. “Sunset’s almost never missed a single class, let alone a whole day.”

“Ooh! Maybe Dracula found her yesterday and bit her,” said Pinkie, still oddly jovial.

“For the last time Pinkie, Dracula is pure fiction,” said Twilight, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly natural explanation for why Sunset isn’t here. I’ll just call her and we’ll see what’s wrong.” With that in mind, Twilight produced her cell phone and dialed Sunset’s number.

The phone rang for a few seconds before it was finally picked up and a gravelly voice responded with a weak “ _Hello?_ ”

“Sunset? Are you okay?” asked Twilight, concern apparent in her voice and barely recognizing the voice on the other end as belonging to her friend. She switched the phone to speaker so that the others could hear.

After clearing her throat, Sunset continued. “ _Oh, hey Twilight,_ ” she said, still sounding weak but much clearer. “ _What’s up?_ ”

“We’re worried about you,” said Twilight. “Where are you?”

“ _Oof, sick in bed,_ ” Sunset replied with a weak moan. “ _And trust me; when I say I feel awful, I mean like ‘got hit by a car’ awful._ ”

All the girls let out a caring “Aww…” at hearing this, and Twilight got back to it.

“Well, we hope you get better soon,” she said. “Do you have any idea what you have? I can probably pick you up some medicine on the way home.”

Even through the phone, Twilight could tell Sunset was smiling at her before getting gripped by a surprisingly strong coughing fit, though this quickly passed. “ _Thanks Twi, but I- I’ll be fine. I’m pretty sure it’s just the flu or something. I should be fine by tomorrow._ ”

“Just hang tight Sunny,” said Pinkie, suddenly holding the phone. “Right after school’s out, we’ll be over to cheer you up.”

“ _Really? Thanks girls,_ ” said Sunset, honestly stunned by how apparently willing they were to get infected with something if it meant helping their friend. “ _And hey uh, if it’s not too much to ask, could you get me my homework for the day while you’re at it?_ ”

“Way ahead of ya sugarcube,” said Applejack. “Ah already got yer science and math stuff, so once we’re done here, ye’re good to go.”

“ _Thanks girls,_ ” said Sunset, before falling back into dry hacking. “ _I- *cough* I’m gonna get some water. See you in a few hours._ ”

“See you later Sunset. Bye,” said Twilight just before she hung up. Later on, Rainbow was just walking out of the changing room ready for gym class when Flash walked over, also in his athletic wear.

“Hey Dash, do you have any idea where Sunset is?” he asked. “I haven’t seen her all day.” Rainbow was just about to answer when she gave Flash a good looking-over; she had no idea how she had never noticed this sooner, but Flash’s gym clothes were actually really tight-fitting and helped show that he had a pretty rockin’ bod.

She could feel her face heating up at the sight and quickly tried her best to shake it off before she returned to his question. “Uh yeah. Yeah no, she’s not here,” she said, still feeling blood rise to her cheeks. “She’s home sick.”

“Seriously? She seemed fine yesterday,” said Flash.

“Yeah, she says it’s just the flu or something, but either way the others and I are gonna be heading over to check on her after school,” said Rainbow. “You wanna come with, that’s fine with me.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” said Flash. “Thanks.” Once school was over, Fluttershy came by each of their houses in her large green van and drove them all toward Sunset’s house. Since Twilight was the last one to get picked up, it was a much longer drive to Sunset’s house and on the way, she noticed the book Flash was reading and looked at him with an almost dismissing look on her face.

“Seriously?” she asked.

“What? Just being safe,” said Flash. “Nothing wrong with that.” Twilight just rolled her eyes and returned to her math homework. Once they were at Sunset’s house, Fluttershy found there wasn’t much in the way of available parking next to the house, so she was forced to park on the street outside. Once she had, everyone piled out and crowded outside the door. Rainbow tried the doorknob and scowled at her results.

“Locked,” she said. Twilight figured Sunset had done the clichéd thing and left a spare key under her welcome mat, but upon checking and finding nothing, she checked for a mailbox, finding only a letterbox in the door itself.

She shrugged and simply used her telekinesis to unlock the door and open it, allowing everyone to file in and upstairs. Aside from the small pile of laundry near the bedroom door, her house was remarkably tidy. Flash knocked on the door itself and received a throaty groan as an answer followed by a weak “Come in”. He opened the door to find Sunset’s room almost completely dark; her room’s lights were on dimmer switches and while they _were_ on, they were at the lowest light level giving the room a very strange appearance. Looking to the bed, they saw Sunset lying under the covers up to her neck, which had rather efficient-seeming bandages on the left side of them. With what little light there was, Flash could see that her face was remarkably pale, not its usual bright orange.

“Hey Sunny, how ya feelin?” Pinkie’s jovial question nearly shook Flash from his examination, though he still looked intently at her. Sunset gave a low groan, her eyes scrunching and her legs shifting under the covers.

Rarity gave a sympathetic smile. “That bad, eh?”

“Ugh. Worse,” Sunset moaned as she carefully opened her eyes, her vision still blurry.

“Well don’t you worry sugarcube,” said Applejack as she and Twilight put their friend’s homework on her desk. “You know we’re here for ya.”

“Thanks girls,” Sunset groaned as her vision started to come back into focus. Her eyes were locked on a blurry form next to her which she assumed was either Applejack or Rainbow Dash based on the blurry colors, but once it came into focus, her eyes snapped open and she blushed, seeing it was actually Flash.

Rainbow herself was rifling through an old bag of potato chips she had managed to snag from the kitchen a few minutes ago. “Are we so sure she isn’t just on her period?” she asked, tossing a handful into her mouth.

Sunset let out a low growl. “I already did that this month,” she said. “And stop eating my food.” This was interrupted by a massive coughing fit, prompting Flash to try and help her with it by leaning her up.

“Hey-hey-hey, take it easy,” he said, helping move her hand to cover her mouth. Once she moved it, however, everyone saw small flecks of red on her skin. “Ooh boy, that’s not a good sign is it?”

“No it isn’t,” said Twilight. “Though it might help us figure out what’s wrong with her.” With that in mind, she took out a small pad of paper and a pen and sat down across from Flash next to Sunset, who had reassumed her laying down position. “Let’s see; persistent coughing sometimes flecked with blood…” She then moved a hand to Sunset’s forehead, feeling that it was not only burning up but also coated in sweat. “Whew, definite fever and night-sweats. Anything else?”

“Well, it feels like my chest is collapsing in on itself,” Sunset wheezed out. “And I can hardly move. My body feels like my bones are made of lead, and I’m _freezing_. And really thirsty- could one of you go get me some more water please?”

“Of course Sunset,” said Fluttershy, ducking out toward the kitchen.

“Any nausea?” asked Twilight, apparently getting concerned.

“Not really,” said Sunset, moving a hand under the covers to rub her stomach. “But I’m not really hungry either.”

Twilight took a sharp, long inhalation through her teeth as she wrote everything down, making Flash concerned as well. “What’s wrong? Do you know what it is?”

“Well that’s a bit of both good news and bad news,” said Twilight. “Sorry to say this Sunset but given all the symptoms I think you might have tuberculosis.”

“Oh my heavens, this is very bad,” said Rarity. “I’ve read my fair share of classical literature and whenever the female lead takes ill, it’s almost _always_ tuberculosis.”

“Thankfully these days, it’s easily treated,” said Twilight. “My dad has streptomycin in the first-aid kit back home just in case something like this happens. I’ll just get you some of that and you should be good to go.”

“You were fine yesterday though,” said Flash, discounting her unusual behavior in the library. “What happened after you left school?” His timing for asking that couldn’t have been better as Fluttershy had just returned with a glass of water in her hands. Once it was extended to her, Sunset shot up and downed the entire glass in one massive gulp before crashing back to her pillows, Flash quickly catching the glass before it could hit the ground and break.

“Nothing,” she sighed, voice still scratchy. “I came home and-” Her eyes popped open as she remembered something that made her curl up under her blankets. “Right. There was the bat.”

“A b-b-bat?” asked Fluttershy, honestly a bit more frightened now than usual.

“ _Vampire_ bat. It got into my house somehow,” said Sunset, pointing a hand to the bedroom window. “I scared it off, but it did get a good bite in.” Twilight adjusted her glasses as she looked out the window.

“Vampire bats don’t normally carry tuberculosis,” said Twilight. “Or bite humans either. How’d it get in?”

Sunset shrugged. “I dunno, I must’ve forgotten to close the window before I left yesterday,” she said. Flash bit his lip; this might’ve been more serious than simple tuberculosis.

“Uh, you _do_ have your rabies shot right?” he asked.

“Do they even _have_ medicine like that in Equestria?” asked Rainbow, still snacking on the chips.

Sunset groaned. “Yes, they do,” she said. “And even if they didn’t, I got them last a few days ago, so I’m good on that front.”

“It does usually take longer than a day for rabies symptoms to kick in,” said Twilight. “And I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a rabies case preceded by tuberculosis. Still, you should probably see a doctor.”

“No,”

Rarity was confused and placed a hand on her hip. “What on earth do you mean no, darling?” she asked.

“I mean I’m not going to a doctor,” groaned Sunset, clearly taking a fetal position under the blankets. “I’ll just take those drugs from Twilight and I’ll be fine.”

“Darling, be rational,” said Rarity. “You’ve been bitten by a wild animal, and now you’re sick. You have to see a professional.”

Sunset grunted in anger and pointed at herself with an arm she had snaked out from under the sheets. “Uh yeah, in case you forgot, not from here,” she said. “I mean shots and physicals for gym class are one thing, but a full-blown examination? I don’t think I need any human doctors possibly finding equine organs in a teenage human girl’s body. Besides, it’s not like I’m dying or anything.”

Pinkie just snorted. “Yet,” she said. “But I read the book, and if you push it off for too long, you’ll end up just like Lucy.”

“Oh for-” groaned Sunset, pulling her hand back under her covers. “How many times do we have to tell you, Pinkie Pie? Dracula doesn’t exist.”

“Says the magical pony girl,” Rainbow rolled her eyes, folding her arms.

“That is a completely different set of circumstances and I think you know that,” said Sunset. Flash rested a hand on what he thought was Sunset’s shoulder in concern.

“Sunset cmon, we’re just worried about you, that’s all,” he said. “You know we don’t want anything happening to you.”

Sunset fidgeted and clearly blushed, with Twilight following her lead as she saw why. Sunset quickly cleared her throat before she turned her head to Flash under the blankets. “I appreciate that. I really do. But I’ll be fine. Also? Flash? Does that thing you’re grabbing feel at all odd to you?” Flash was confused as to what she was asking until he felt the object a bit more, with it feeling a bit softer than a human shoulder should. Quickly getting the picture, he jumped back and lost his balance, landing flat on his butt.

Rainbow went insane with laughing for a few seconds as he pulled himself up. Once he was up, she managed to get herself under control. “Whew! Whew… Good times… Gooooood tiiimes…”

Ignoring her… “Sunset, that seems bullheaded,” said Applejack. “And that’s _me_ sayin’ that.”

There was a long pause before Sunset came out from the sheets, still bright red from the unintentional groping, and gave a defeated sigh. “Alright, alright, you win,” she said. “If it gets any worse, I’ll go see a doctor or something. But I’m sure I just need some rest. And also some more water, please? I’m dying in here.” Applejack shook her head at her friend but took the glass anyway and left for the kitchen.

Flash stood near the desk, still bright red and hands in his jacket pockets. “Is there anything else we can do for you?” he asked. “Maybe get you some food, or painkillers or something?”

“Thanks but I’m not hungry. And I already took something before you got here,” said Sunset. “And some melatonin, so I should be out… any minute now…” She yawned that last part, the melatonin already kicking in. AJ made it back with the water and just like last time, Sunset shot up and downed the whole glass before handing it back and crashing to her bed. She smacked her lips and gave a weak groan as Rainbow, still wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, walked toward the door.

“Well, we might as well let her rest girls,” she said. “Cmon, let’s go.”

Rarity pursed her lips. “Very well,” she said, before turning back to Sunset. “Just promise-”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll call you guys if anything gets worse,” said Sunset, waving them out. “But I’ll be fine, really. Just… need… some… sleep…” With that, her arm slumped down and she fell asleep, quietly snoring. Rarity sighed as the girls left the room, though Flash stayed in the room.

“You coming, Flash?” Twilight asked quietly.

“I’ll catch up in a sec,” he replied. Twilight shrugged and went after the others, leaving the two alone. Flash knew physical contact was probably a bad idea, but he couldn’t help it as he leaned over to her, placed a kiss in his fingers and then touched them to her mouth. “Night beautiful.” With that sentiment in mind, Flash left to follow the others… missing the smile that formed on Sunset’s lips once he was gone.

When he made it out to the van, the others were already piling in. “I hope she’ll be okay,” said Twilight as she locked the door behind him with her powers and boarded as well.

“Well, she _does_ have magic with her,” said Rarity. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

“Still, is anybody else wonderin’ where that bat got to?” asked Applejack. The others admitted to a polite curiosity as Fluttershy drove off. What they didn’t know was that they would soon find out…

 

**Later…**

The moon rose over Canterlot and once it did, everything wrong with Sunset seemed to increase tenfold, making her feel even worse than she had before. She tossed and turned in her bed, hearing the haunting accented voice of Dracula in her mind.

“ _Sunset… My subject… Arise…_ ” it rasped. “ _Arise… and… feed!_ ” This last word managed to jolt Sunset from her sleep, sending her into a cold sweat and heavy breathing. She couldn’t tell but when she woke, her eyes had taken on a bright red hue, completely eclipsing her usual blue-green. It wasn’t truly her either; her true self was on the edge of black-out, but still terrified

“Wha- What the hell’s happening to me?” she asked, looking at her shaking hands. Then she heard a strange chuckling from the shadows outside, the black-out finally gripping her in full. She felt drawn to this strange laughing, leaving the comfort of her bed for her backyard where she saw the same old man from yesterday morning standing in the yard.

“You believe you know of hell?” he asked, his eyes suddenly glowing red. “You know nothing. Trust me; I have met the devil, and even _he_ pities my prey. Now, my subject… kneel.” Sunset found herself unable to turn down his orders as she dropped to her knees and bowed her head to the great vampire.

“Yes… master,” she said. Dracula picked her up and looked her over, smirking at her appearance.

“You so remind me of my past prey Lucy,” he said. “You wouldn’t happen to be related to her in any way, would you?”

“No, master,” said the entranced Sunset, her stomach suddenly growling like a feral beast. “Please… help me… I’m so hungry.”

“Ah yes, you would be,” said Dracula. “And you do not yet know how to feed. Not to worry my dear… I will teach you.” Then he noticed her neck. “But first, these will have to go!” Without any more warning, he ripped the bandages off her neck, revealing that the fang-marks on her neck had almost completely healed. “What? No scar? Hmph. I must’ve been a bit rusty. No matter.” He took Sunset’s hand and lifted her from the ground… literally. They were floating now. “Now… you must feed…” She would not remember what happened that night, but it would only be a matter of time before she found out…

**So about this Lucy person they’re talking about; this is Lucy Westenra, Dracula’s first prey upon landing in England. The vampire drinks her dry thrice, the first two times ending with her being temporarily saved by two separate men each giving her a blood transfusion (which sidenote; was the hot new science at the time and wasn’t fully understood, so no-one was checked for blood-type. But don’t worry; it’s hand-waved. Congrats in living in the 21 st Century) and the third time killing both her _and_ her mother in the process. She is nearly kept down, but it doesn’t work out as someone steals a little gold crucifix from her coffin and she rises from the grave, draining the blood of small children until Dr. Abraham Van Helsing and her suitors from chapter 5 put her down permanently, after having been proved that Lucy was a vampire by Van Helsing taking them to her mausoleum and actively showing her drinking a small child dry. See, basically the _only_ good thing about Victorian-era vampires like Dracula is that their operatic levels of theatrical BS make it super-easy to prove to skeptics that there’s somethin’ legit spoopy going on.**


	4. Apparent Aftermath

The alarm clock rattled to annoying life once again and Sunset weakly slapped it until the sound stopped. She lifted herself out of her bed and stretched out her arms and legs. She fully expected to feel incredibly stiff and still disgusting from staying sick in bed all day yesterday, but actually aside from the odd taste in her mouth, she felt better than she had in ages; incredibly limber, even refreshed. “Ha! I knew it was nothing,” she smirked to herself. Moving to the window, she threw open the blinds and found herself recoiling from the bright light of the sun, letting out an involuntary hiss. Quickly, she threw the blinds closed again and leaned against her bedside table, panting from this experience. “Okay, so… still sensitive to light. Bear that in mind.”

Once she had blinked the black spots from her eyes, she left for her bathroom. Her skin did seem a bit pale, but there was something else; almost like her reflection was fading from her sight. She figured that last part was just her imagination, but the paleness was certainly due to the fact that she had been shivering and sweating under her covers for the past 24- no, _36_ hours at least. Checking back at said covers, she saw that _that part_ at least, was confirmed; there was a massive sweat-stain on her bedsheets. Her hair was also a knotted mess and in her humble opinion, the smell emanating from her body was probably enough to make a skunk recoil.

Nothing a hot shower wouldn’t mend. It would also help with the coldness she still felt. Not freezing like she was last night, but still cold enough to get goosebumps. “ _Alright, so a shower and maybe a bowl of soup for breakfast._ ” That sounded like a good morning to her brain, but her stomach turning at the thought of food made her second-guess that. “ _Okay, maybe just the shower._ ” With that, she turned on the water, slid out of her _appalling_ -smelling nightgown (resolving to wash it when she got home tonight), and stepping into the steaming curtain of water. But something about it didn’t feel right; it drove the goosebumps away sure, but she still felt a deep inner cold within herself.

She had found herself with this strange feeling for a while, especially after watching Twilight, Gloriosa, Juniper, Wallflower, _and_ Vignette fall to the power of dark magic. It almost felt like her old demon form was trying to claw its way out, but she always felt that swallowing a few gulps of the shower-water helped drive it back down. Her plumbing was spotless, so she didn’t need to worry about swallowing any sort of sediment whenever she did this, but after a few gulps made the cold _mostly_ subside, she was surprised to find she still felt a strange chill in her bones that not even the water could resolve.

Ignoring it to the best of her ability, Sunset took to washing her hair; pulling out all the knots and letting the water wash through her burning locks. The water felt so soothing, that if only it were the weekend, she would stay in that shower all morning. Unfortunately, the reminder that she had school that day prompted her to turn off the water, dry off, and prepare for the day. She was almost tempted to wear her usual vest that day but sticking her hand under the blinds, she felt the sun burn her skin. At this, she calmly pulled her hand back and decided to wear something else. Her boots were still high on her list but she replaced almost everything else with black jeans, one of her old jackets, a white t-shirt and a pair of black fingerless gloves. Once she was dressed and had lashed her geode to her neck, she carefully opened the blinds again.

The sun was still there, but it was dimmed by a large cluster of clouds. Sunset wasn’t sure about it, but she decided it was… well, _tolerable_ at least. She figured she’d been inside too long and just needed to… readjust. Either way, she figured the clouds would keep the sun at bay long enough. But even with the light muted, her eyes still hurt and the longer she looked out the window, the more this pain seemed to amplify. She decided that she had better do something about it or it would drive her crazy, so she decided to take the old sunglasses Flash had given her when they were first dating. She had never worn them before, but she wasn’t sure why: silver aerial rims, yellow lenses; they were pretty stylish. Either way, she slipped them on and the light became much more manageable. With that, she slung her backpack and guitar case over her shoulders and moved for the door. Just before she opened it, however, she decided to check out back. She wasn’t sure why, but something about it seemed unusual. Once she looked outside, nothing looked too out of the ordinary… except for the freshly turned bare earth in the back corner under the shadow of a tree.

She suddenly became very suspicious, but a subconscious look at her watch revealed the time to be… 6:40?! “Ah crap, I’m late!” she said and rushed to her bike. She wasn’t sure if it was the sudden spike of adrenaline or not, but Sunset felt like she had practically glided through her house and across the pavement to her bike’s seat. Couldn’t have taken more than five seconds. “ _Whatever._ ” Revving up the engine, she thundered down the road. Ten minutes later, she screeched to a stop outside school, having gotten lucky with the traffic lights. With the bell imminent, she went to her locker to put away her stuff. Once she had, however, she noticed her classmate Octavia Melody was walking down the hall clearly lost in thought about something.

“Hey Tavi,” she said, using the cellist’s affectionate nickname. “You… don’t seem so hot. Something wrong?”

Octavia managed a weak smile and scratched the back of her neck. “Good morning Sunset,” she said. “I’ve just had a rough night. My brother was sent to the hospital last night.”

“Toe Tapper?” Sunset’s heart almost skipped a beat at the news. “Oh man, is he okay?”

“The doctors said he should be fine, thank heaven, but-” She shut her locker and looked at Sunset with a rather unusual look in her eye. “They aren’t completely sure what happened to him. Last night, he was just taking the garbage out, but he never came back in. When I went to check on him, I just saw him lying there in the driveway, unconscious. They said he just suddenly lost most of his blood, but they have no idea how.”

“Wow, that’s… honestly kinda weird,” said Sunset, mentally comparing it to everything that had happened in this town in the past. Let’s see; she-demon, Sirens, she-demon again, forest monster, fame-hungry giant, memory-erasing rock, literal internet virus… Yep, this was definitely up there.

“It gets weirder,” Octavia started whispering. “While we were at the hospital, three more people were admitted under similar circumstances; almost completely drained of blood.”

Shutting her locker, Sunset suddenly fixed her gaze on Octavia’s jugular. “Definitely… weirder…” She suddenly left the waking world and focused on the cellist’s neck, watching the blood rush up to her face, clearly faster than usual. She was nervous, concerned about Toe Tapper. The vein twitched every third or fifth word, and Sunset could only help but focus on it. “ _B-positive, in fair enough shape. Impeccable pressure._ ”

Sunset could feel a strange saliva welling up in her mouth; maybe skipping breakfast this morning was a bad idea. That sort of thinking, however, was stunted by her stomach turning again and prompting her to focus once again on Octavia’s neck. Suddenly she felt something else in her mouth; almost like her canines were lengthening. This snapped her out of her daze and made her put a hand to her mouth, confusing Octavia. “Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah I’m fine,” she replied, muffled by her hand. “I just need to go to the bathroom really quick.” Quickly slipping to the girls’ restroom, she moved her hand, lifted her sunglasses and opened her mouth. Honestly, she was half-expecting to see fangs protruding from her top gums, and was rather surprised to see nothing. “What the…?” Suddenly the first bell rang, its shrill cry reminding Sunset she had somewhere to be. Quickly she grabbed the shades back onto her face and ran to her classroom with a few things on her mind; What had Octavia been saying before she left? What was that feeling in her mouth? She rubbed her forehead as she slowed down approaching the science room door; she must’ve spaced out for at least a whole minute. “ _Maybe I should’ve taken an extra day off._ ” No use trying to change the past; she had already heard from Princess Twilight about how well _that_ went for Starlight Glimmer. She was here now and she decided she might as well push through. Unfortunately, she didn’t account for not being able to push through the edge of a solid pine door, because that had suddenly been in her way at just the right time to knock her to the floor. “OW!”

“Oh man, sorry Sunset I-” Sunset’s vision cleared just enough to see it was Flash who had opened the door in her face and was now looking at her with a strange smile. She noticed something else unusual about him too; he was wearing his jacket closed. He almost never did that. But it was pretty cold that day, so she could understand that part at least. “You’re wearing the shades.”

“The sun was hurting my eyes,” she said, getting up and brushing herself off. “And now the rest of me hurts.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” said Flash. “I didn’t see you. But… I will be Wednesday night, right?”

“Depends on whether or not I relapse,” said Sunset, feeling her head.

“Yeah about that; aside from the whole door thing, how do you feel?” asked Flash.

“Honestly? Great,” said Sunset. “Little thirsty, but great.” With that in mind, she pulled her water bottle off of her backpack and took a long drink. It didn’t do too much to help though. But she persevered.

Later on, at lunch, Sunset’s throat still felt dry and scratchy as she sat with her friends.

“He-hey, nice shades SunShim,” said Rainbow.

“Thanks,” she said, lifting the glasses. She squinted at the sharp contrast and put them back on. “I just took ‘em because my eyes are still light-sensitive.”

“Well, at least you’re feeling better,” said Twilight. “I’ve never heard of a tuberculosis case resolving itself a day after it happened before.”

“Well, aside from the light and constant thirst, I’ve never felt better,” Sunset glanced down at her lunch and found her stomach turning again. “I also still don’t have much of an appetite.” With that, she pushed her tray away.

Applejack smirked at her friend. “Cmon now sugarcube,” she said, pushing her tray back. “We all know what it’s like fallin’ off the tail o’ the dragon, in a manner of speakin’; trust me, we getcha, but if ya don’t eat somethin’ soon, you’re just gonna shrivel up and bite it eventually.”

“Well, I guess it can’t hurt,” she shrugged. With that in mind, she speared some of her salad onto her fork. Once she touched one of the leaves to her tongue however, her face turned about as green as it. She dropped her fork and tried to swallow down her gag reflex. “Ugh. Did not like. Can’t do it.”

“Then, can I?” asked Pinkie, apparently very hungry.

“Be my guest,” said Sunset, sitting back up. Pinkie didn’t have to be told twice as she basically leaped for the bowl and started chowing down on it like… well, like “name an anime protagonist”.

Rarity narrowed her eyes at her friend as she poked at her rice. “You could try and show a bit more sympathy Pinkie,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“‘s not gonna get her appetite back,” she replied with a full-mouth.

“Ugh. Pinkie, what have we talked about?” asked Rarity haughtily. “Swallow, then speak.”

Pinkie quickly did so, giving a relieved sigh at the food. “She’s actually not wrong, Rarity,” said Sunset, pulling out her water bottle again. “I mean I don’t even know what’s happening to me to cause this.” She put the bottle to her lips and took a long draught from it, the great fluid of nature still barely helping her throat as she moved the bottle. “Still, at least I’m improving. I’m sure I’ll be famished tomorrow. See girls? I told you it was nothing to worry about.”

“I still think you should be more careful in the future,” said Twilight. “What if it’s really something serious next time?”

“If it is, I’ll go to a doctor,” said Sunset before something occurred to her. “But just in case I relapse, you brought the uh…?” She mimed a syringe as best she could without security seeing. “Right?”

“Yep, got it right here,” said Twilight, handing Sunset a small paper bag under the table. Sunset smiled at her friend as she quickly slipped the bag into her backpack. Then she saw Flash coming out of the lunch-line and she could see why he was wearing his jacket zipped up; he was now holding it over his arm and was wearing a blue t-shirt that clung tightly to his muscles, showing them off more. She wasn’t sure if it was just that or something else, but Flash seemed… more handsome than usual today. _Sexy_ , even. The jagged blue flame-like hair on his head, the shape of his cheekbones, his burning blue eyes that almost shone like lapis. Her eyes then moved down to the base of his neck. He was talking with the other members of his band; she didn’t care what about though. His heart-rate was a bit higher than usual, and she could tell almost exactly how much of the blood was going where. “ _O-negative. **Insanely** rich. Really healthy; clearly a good diet and plenty of exercise._” She looked further down, giving her lips a slow, almost sultry lick. They were especially apparent under this shirt, but Sunset knew from personal experience how _ripped_ Flash was. Oh, how much she would give to sink her teeth into him. And not just the neck either.

“You sure you’re not hungry Sunny?” Rainbow’s taunting voice drifted into her ear, shaking her from the strange fantasy. She jolted upright, accidentally knocking herself off the bench to the floor, drawing a bit of unnecessary attention, not the least of which being Flash’s.

“Uh, wh-what happened?” she asked, getting up. All her friends were giving her various looks of amusement, as was a large mass of the students nearby.

Rainbow managed to stop her giggles long enough to say “W- Well I’m pretty sure you were eye-banging Flash.”

“I was not!” Sunset’s reaction was just a little too fast and a little too loud to be taken as truth, and she doubted the fact that her cheeks felt like they were on fire helped much.

“You were drooling…” smirked Rarity, pointing at the small puddle on the table.

“Wha-” Sunset quickly ran her hand across her chin, _terrified_ when she saw a line of spit. “I-I was just zoning out, I swear. I-I wasn’t even thinking about Flash.” In all honesty, she couldn’t actually remember anything between Flash walking out and now. Regardless, thanks to her little outburst, she could now partially tell that Flash’s fellow band-members were telling him to wear shirts like that more often. He, however, looked almost as uncomfortable as she did. They were both in way too deep now, and she knew there was no digging their way out of this particular hole.

She clenched a fist under the table, wracking her brain to try and find the words to save this situation, but given the small dripping sound coming from the floor under her hand, it was clear that her running her fingernails along her palm as she had, only succeeded in drawing blood from her hand. She checked and this belief was confirmed, and somehow the sight of her own blood made her feel almost hungry.

Finally, she gave trying to save the situation a resounding “ _Screw it_ ” and leaned onto the table, pulling her still intact hand up to the top. “Fine. So I was staring at him. But I can’t help it; I… think he’s a really nice guy. Why else would he and I start dating again?” Vinyl Scratch, who had been at the side of the room continuing to develop a mix she was working on, had literally _the_ best sense of timing in that lunchroom because once Sunset said that Vinyl scratched her decks too hard, almost making them give off the usual comedic sound effect while everyone’s gaze turned to Sunset. “What?”

“Whoawhoawhoawhoawhoa,” said Rainbow, just as stunned as everyone. “Y-You and Flash are a thing again?”

“ _Ohhhhh, I am become error,_ ” Sunset’s cheeks were clearly as red as her hair when she realized that she had just said that. But the voice in her head that had said “ _Screw it_ ” in the first place made a repeat appearance and she cleared her throat. “Uh, y-yeah. I mean cmon, look at the guy. How is he _not_ boyfriend material?” Then she stood up, suddenly feeling confident. “Seriously, anyone, give me one good reason why I shouldn’t date Flash again. I’m willing to hear anyone out.” One hand raised, but Sunset knew who it was without even looking at them. “Besides you, Trixie.” Trixie pulled her hand down. Sunset looked around and saw that there were no other hands raised, so she smirked back at her friends, arms crossed in victory. “I rest my case.”

“Man Sunset, you didn’t have to do that,” said Flash as he walked over.

“Eh, maybe not,” Sunset replied. “But damn, did it feel good!” Flash just smiled at Sunset happily, and she returned it with an equally happy smile and a small blush.

But as usual, Rainbow Dash just _had_ to ruin the moment by noisily biting a carrot in half and saying “So are you guys gonna kiss or what?”

The entire room erupted into loud pained groaning with someone in the back yelling “Seriously?!”

“What, I’m just asking!” said Rainbow.

“Really Rainbow Dash, how many times do I have to tell you?” asked Rarity. “There is a time and a place for everything, including things like this.”

“Was this not it?” asked Rainbow.

“What do you think?” asked Twilight, glaring at her.

“Okay, point taken,” said Rainbow. “But seriously, are you?” As tempting as it was for Sunset to simply grab Flash by the shirt and make out with him there and then, something in the back of her mind (presumably the part that not only agreed with literally the entire room _except_ for Rainbow Dash but also the part that **_really_** wanted to punch the aforementioned offender later) told her now was not the time. The bell rang a moment later and confirmed these feelings, prompting everyone to leave with Sunset and Flash in the middle of it.

“So much for keeping it on the DL, huh?” asked Flash.

“Oh shut up, ya hunk,” said Sunset as she blushed. “Wearing that insane shirt. Whose idea was that anyway?” Flash glanced away for a second, letting Sunset piece it together herself. “It was Rainbow, wasn’t it?”

“It was most likely Rainbow, yes,” he replied. Sunset just facepalmed and separated from her boyfriend, leaving for class. Flash shrugged and left as well, but he didn’t see that Sunset was just behind the corner, watching his retreating form.

She licked her lips in a sense of want, but she swiftly came to her senses and rolled back behind the corner, letting out a deep breath to try and settle her hazy mind. “Wow!” she said. “I should seriously get something to snack on.”

“A shame your favorite snack has already left,” Sunset didn’t even need to look to know the annoying voice she was hearing belonged to Trixie Lulamoon, though she did give a powerful scowl.

“I’m giving you a thirty-second headstart, starting now,” she said in a blunt rage. “Better make it count.” Spoiler alert: she didn’t.

With school over, the Rainbooms sat atop the roof of the school near the high ledge, all drinking bottles of sparkling cider that Applejack had generously provided. Sunset had considered leaving quickly given how thoroughly she may have mentally (and possibly literally) scarred Trixie, but she knew the stupid stage magician couldn’t really do anything to her, especially not with her friends all with her. That was the smug thought rolling through Sunset’s head as she and her friends watched the clouds drift by overhead, though she got an irritating itch every time the sun poked its bright gold face out from behind the mask of many faces that were the clouds. Flash was sitting next to her, of course, and it took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to tackle him to the roof right then and there. As much as she enjoyed this new surge of confidence, she wasn’t exactly sure she needed the… desires that apparently came as a package deal with it.

Pinkie tossed the rest of her cider back with a massive few gulps and then burped loudly. “Scuse me,” she said with a sly giggle.

“Indeed,” said Rarity, waving her hand.

“So anyway, guess what I heard in trig today? It’s suuuper spooky,” said Pinkie.

Rainbow let out a refreshed gasp after a big gulp of her cider. “Lemme guess. A bunch of people were put in the hospital last night because they miraculously lost a lot of blood.”

Pinkie gasped. “Dashie, you’re psychic and you didn’t tell me?” she asked.

“Nah, Vapor Trail told me in the locker room,” said Rainbow. “Sky Stinger was one of the people admitted last night.”

Fluttershy almost dropped her soda off the edge. “Oh no. Is he gonna be okay?” she asked.

“I dunno,” said Rainbow, leaning so that her back was on the roof. “I hope so. I haven’t seen Vapor so worried about him since b-ball tryouts.”

“Oh yeah, I remember that,” said Twilight in an amused manner.

Sunset had to lean back as well so she could see Rainbow. “Well the same thing happened to Toe Tapper, and Octavia says he should be fine.” She glanced into her empty bottle. “Still, this is kinda weird.”

“I say it was Dracula,” said Pinkie. At this point, Twilight had given up on trying to tell her Dracula wasn’t real, but Sunset hadn’t.

“Pinkie, for the _actual_ last time, vampires don’t exist,” she said, almost cringing.

“Yeah, and I called bull on that remember?” asked Rainbow.

“Again, totally different circumstances,” said Sunset. “I stand by what I said; positively no vampires here, and I’m nearly certain they aren’t a thing in Equestria. We have minotaurs and chimeras, but not vampires.”

“Well, if it wasn’t a vampire then what was it?” asked Pinkie.

Sunset rubbed her neck with one hand, honestly rather surprised to not even find so much as a scar, but she brushed it off. “A very hungry vampire _bat_?” she suggested.

“You mean the one that you said bit you?” asked Fluttershy.

“Yeah, I mean who knows?” asked Sunset. “Maybe the only vampire-ish thing the Blood Sun did was make vampire bats go weird and want human blood.”

Twilight adjusted her glasses. “Given everything we’ve been through, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what happened,” she said. “But still, why is a vampire bat here in Canterlot? They don’t normally migrate this way.”

Applejack shrugged. “Maybe someone’s idea of an exotic pet?” she suggested. All eyes turned to Pinkie.

“What’re you looking at me for? It wasn’t me,” she said, holding her hands up in defense. “Besides, I’ve already got enough to worry about with Gummy. And I always make sure to never let him leave my side. See?” With that, she reached into her hair and pulled out her baby alligator. Twilight’s jaw almost hit the ground.

“I don’t- I just- I- What-? How-?” she stammered.

“Let it go Twilight,” said Sunset. “Trust me, you’ll live longer.”

“If ye’re done bein’ random Pinkie…” said Applejack.

“Oh, I’m just gettin’ warmed up,” she said, stuffing Gummy back into her hair.

“…we’ve got bigger potatoes to fry,” Applejack almost said fish, but remembered Fluttershy was never okay with those sorts of idioms, so she did a little quick editing. “If there _is_ an aggressive bat flyin’ round town n’ bitin’ folk, shouldn’t we do somethin’ ‘bout it?”

The sun peeked out from the clouds again, prompting Sunset to raise an arm and block it. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Like I said, it’s probably just a Blood Sun thing. That bat’s probably back to normal by now. Besides, even if it weren’t, unless it’s sucking people’s _souls_ out and not just their blood, it’s Animal Control’s problem, not ours.”

“God, what are we now; the Magic Police or something?” Rainbow was then bombarded by a sea of neutral faces that would make Maud look like she was smiling, clearly nonverbally reminding her of literally every magical event that ever happened at the school since the Fall Formal. “Okay, point taken.”

“Though that does actually sound like a really nice fantasy book series,” said Flash. “Like, okay here’s what I’m thinking; world-touring teen rock band by day, relic-hunting monster-fighting super-team by night.”

“Well that does sound like us,” said Twilight. “Except one thing; we’re not world-touring.”

“Yet,” said Rainbow optimistically. “Just give it a few years, we’ll figure something out.”

Just then, Twilight saw a familiar car down below. “Oop. That’s my brother,” she said, getting up. “I’d better get going. Third Friday of every month is pasta night at my house. Rarity, if you will?”

“Express elevator, going down,” said Rarity, creating a platform with her gem shields and letting Twilight board it before she lowered it down to the ground. Once there, Twilight waved to her friends before jogging to the car.

Once she was gone, Sunset noticed that she felt unusually sluggish. Her skin was red from her persistent scratching, and she was even more thirsty than she was _before_ she had drank her soda. She walked over to the side-wall, ready to climb down the ivy if need-be. “I should probably go too,” she said. “Still feeling kinda out of it.” Pinkie leaned back, squinting at her and pursing her lips. “And for the last time Pinkie, I was just sick yesterday. Just because I got bit by a bat doesn’t mean I got bit by a vampire. I swear you watch _way_ too much TV.”

“No, I watch exactly the right amount,” she said, getting up and zipping to Sunset. “You can never… watch… too much.”

“She said, obviously quoting _The Road to El Dorado_ ,” said Rainbow, remembering that old Dreamworks movie she had seen once.

“Either way, I’ve got my eyes on you,” said Pinkie, pointing between her’s and Sunset’s eyes as she reversed away.

Sunset rolled her eyes as she moved for the ivy. “Whatever,” she said. “Look, I’m outta here. Good night.” With that, she clambered down the tough ivy and landed on the ground near the student parking lot, stumbling a bit as she landed. She hopped onto her bike and took off back down the street, wincing again at the sun peeking out. “ _Great, now Pinkie’s got you paranoid. Focus Sunset; just because you got some sort of weird tuberculosis after a bat bit you and you’re a little sensitive to light, that doesn’t mean you’re a vampire… right?_ ” The rational part of her brain wanted to believe this, but the part that thrived on magic, even in the human world, wasn’t sure.

“ _Still, weird sun and magic or no, a bat-bite can’t suddenly turn you into a demon. I mean, even if there is some weird magic residue leaking into this world, that doesn’t mean every fairy-tale creature is gonna suddenly pop into existence, right?_ ” She nodded to herself; all she’d need was another night’s rest and she’d be good as gold. Still, something made her feel a bit uneasy. But she brushed it off as she pulled in next to her house. She decided to check something just to be sure and looked at all the windows. Still shut. She gave a relieved sigh and got her homework out. Even if it _was_ Friday, she decided she might as well get it done early so she would have more free time for her weekend. But halfway through her math homework, she suddenly felt herself pass out. She would have no idea what would happen that night.

**Later…**

That night, Vinyl was out in town for an evening stroll, listening to her usual techno-pop when she saw a strange shape down an alley. Quickly she turned off her music, moved her headphones and peered down the alley to see a pair of bright red eyes. “Who’s there?” she asked in a strange sense of fear. The eyes moved into the light to show a familiar head of hair. “Oh, it’s just you.” She raised her shades and looked the person over. “You okay? You don’t look too hot.”

“I’m fine,” they returned said in a strange tone. “Just… thirsty. How about a soda? I’m buyin’.”

“Ah, I can’t make it,” she said. “Raincheck though?”

“I insist,” the person said, their eyes almost glowing red. “One drink.” Vinyl found herself unable to resist as she suddenly found herself walking down the alley. Once she was in the darkness, she suddenly snapped out of her strange trance and saw this person looked much more different than she had originally thought; her hair was wild, her teeth sharper and her chin and chest were both drenched in blood. Before she could scream in surprise, the being quickly covered her mouth with one hand, shoved her up against the alley wall and plunged her fangs into the DJ’s neck, her blood coursing through them and down her throat. The deed was practically done for good when a nearby streetlight chose that exact moment to flicker on. The being, suddenly revealed to be Sunset, raised an arm to shield her eyes as she pulled away from her latest victim and let her drop to the ground, curling on the pavement.

“ _No! This is wrong! Stop this!_ ” Part of her psyche shrieked in agony at seeing her friend like this, but the main part of her mind at the moment over-shadowed this, still hungry. Though surprisingly she did feel a sense of guilt, leaving her friend in the alley like this. Wasting no time, she scooped her up into her arms and flew away with her. On the way to her location, she noticed someone on a high water-tower nearby and flew to him, seeing it was Dracula.

“What are you doing, my subject?” he asked. “You know I prefer my tribute fresh.”

“She’s not tribute Master,” said Sunset. “I already feasted on her. But she _is_ one of my human friends, and I couldn’t leave her as I’ve left the others tonight. I’m taking her to a hospital.”

“Fine,” said Dracula, smirking as well. “At least there, you should be able to steal yourself a snack or two.” Sunset smiled, happy at knowing her master thought the same as her.

**Later…**

The alarm clock seemed particularly annoying today, prompting Sunset to let out a low hiss as she swung a fist out on top of it, resulting in a loud *crack!* and a dying cry of static. She felt something almost stab into her hand once this had happened as well. Looking up from her bed, she was surprised to see that she had somehow broken her alarm clock clean in half, and some of the shrapnel had stabbed her hand just below the knuckles. “ _Whoa. How the hell did I do that?_ ” Then she saw something else confusing; her hand was still wrapped in the black glove she had put on yesterday. Moving her blankets, she saw she was still wearing her other clothes from yesterday as well, but with one major exception; her shirt was torn in places and the shirt she had left was stained red with what felt like dried blood.

“ _Okay, what the hell did I do last night?_ ” Her mind was foggy and for some reason, her mouth tasted like iron. She could barely remember anything of last night, but suddenly something blasted back to her; the tall, thin pale man in all-black atop a water tower across town… with fangs. She doubled over as this memory came to her, her hand landing on the desk. She looked around and saw her room was still pitch-black; curtains were drawn and everything but the items on her desk were what caught her attention, her heart-rate going through the roof as she recognized what they were; blood bags. “Wh-wh-wh- wh-whwhwhwhwhwhwh- What?!” She could barely speak coherently as her eyes locked onto the bags. She reached for one and picked it up with a shaking hand, the bright red fluid sloshing around inside it as she drew it closer to her face. Suddenly something took hold of her and before she could even understand what she was doing, she ripped the bottom of the bag off and gave it a good squeeze, shooting the bright red nectar of life flow into her mouth, letting it course down her throat in a glorious red river of disgust. She licked the bag dry before she dropped it, quickly licking the excess drops from her hands before she suddenly snapped back to normal. She stood, rigid as a board before she looked down at the empty blood bag at her feet. She dropped to her knees and stared at her shaking hands, still stained with blood. Her breath quickening in fear, only one thing went through her mind as she ran full-tilt to her bathroom, the full weight of her actions crashing down on her. She looked in the mirror and aside from her reflection still appearing less and less visible, two things were apparent; her eyes were red, though they were slowly returning to their usual blue, and two long fangs were protruding from her upper lip, slowly retracting into her mouth.

Putting it all together, she stumbled backward out of the bathroom. “No. N-no-no-no-no-no-no…” she stammered in fear, tripping over her backpack and crawling backward along the floor. This… This isn’t happening. I-It’s all just bad dream, right?” She gave herself a few light smacks in the face, but she still felt it clear as day. “N-No. How is this possible? They don’t exist! I don’t get it! How can I-?” Then she remembered something. “That guy… He-” Suddenly she realized the gravity of her situation. “I-I’ve been bitten by… Dracula?”


	5. Experts

“ _Dear Princess Twilight, this is probably gonna sound crazy – hell, I’m having a hard time just writing it out, but… you remember the time I gave that book ‘Dracula’? Well, it turns out it’s not actually pure fiction. A few days ago, the sun turned red and brought the title character back to life… And he bit me… I know how crazy that sounds, but… I was sick the next day, passed the day after that. But this morning, I woke up in my clothes from yesterday, covered in blood. Aside from starting my homework, what I did last night is almost a total blur. There are blood bags on my desk, one of which I drank, and when I looked in the mirror I swear to Celestia I saw fangs- Twilight I’m a vampire, and I’m freaking out because of it; I have no idea what to do. Please write back as soon as you can. Your friend, Sunset Shimmer._ ”

She snapped the journal shut and tossed it back onto her bed before she ran a hand through her hair. The logical part of her brain was wracked trying to think of some sort of explanation for this aside from the Vampire King making a meal of her. Maybe someone roofied her with something and forced her to commit some sort of weird robbery. Maybe it was just Trixie playing a prank on her as payback for yesterday. No matter what scenario she came up with, her actions from just a few seconds ago and the image of the greatest horror in the mortal world burned into her eyes would force her to remember that this was the truth now. Once she had convinced herself thoroughly enough that this was reality, that she was indeed a vampire, she started thinking of her next step; Wait for Princess Twilight to respond? No, there was no telling how long _that_ would take. And even if she were to respond within the next few seconds, what if she didn’t know what to do either? She knew the other girls had plans for today, but she needed their help here and now.

Quickly she grabbed her phone and opened her’s and the girls’ group-chat. “ _Emergency. My house. ASAP. Bring Flash, and possibly crosses._ ”

She received swift answers from all of them, all agreeing to the terms, but all asking for context. Sunset merely responded with “ _It’ll be easier to explain in person._ ” Once she had sent that, she raced to her computer, anxiously running her fingers along the desk as it booted up. Once it was on, she quickly punched in her password, booted up her web browser and hastily typed “how to cure vampirism” into the search bar. Unfortunately, most the results were about some weird fantasy RPG called _Skyrim_. The only worthwhile results were that in some old horror movies, when the head vampire was killed, any vampires created by them would revert to their normal forms.

“Ugh, great,” Sunset quickly stood up from her chair. “How am I supposed to kill Dracula, let alone find him?” Then she remembered something; the bare dirt in the backyard. If that didn’t look like a vampire’s grave, she didn’t know what did. With that in mind, she threw her jacket into her laundry pile, pulled on a hoodie in its place, went to her shed and grabbed a shovel, quickly setting to work, thankfully finding that the dirt was indeed loose, like she wasn’t the first one to do this dig.

Soon enough, the others arrived in Fluttershy’s van, all a bit confused. Then Rainbow looked down the street in confusion and a bit of irritation. “Okay, that car has been following us for miles now,” she said, pointing to the black Alfa Romeo 6C parked just a short ways behind them. “I’ve about had it with weird surprises today.” With that in mind, she walked to the car and knocked on the hood.

“Rainbow Dash, what on Earth are you doing?” asked Rarity, walking over indignantly. Then, possibly caused by Rainbow’s knocking, the left door opened and the driver (obviously since the 1939 6C was a European vehicle and there was no one in the other seat) stepped out, revealing herself to be a young woman with black hair and brown eyes wearing black jeans and boots, as well as a vest with a cross on the back and a white t-shirt advertising something called Hunt-X.

“Can I help you?” she asked in a lessened accent, easily identified by Twilight as sounding at least Dutch, possibly _Pennsylvania_ Dutch she wasn’t quite sure.

“You can help me by telling us why you were following us so closely,” said Rainbow angrily.

“You’ll have to excuse Rainbow Dash ma’am, she suffers from a severe lack of tact,” Rarity was clearly being passive-aggressive; her friends were all used to it and could pick it out in a crowd easily.

“Hmph. Sounds like someone my grandfather once knew,” said the woman. “Anyway, I wasn’t following you. The tenant of this house, Sunset Shimmer, is a friend of mine. She gave me a call, said something unusual was happening in the neighborhood and wanted to give me her eyewitness report in person.”

“You’re friends with Sunset?” asked Twilight. “That’s funny; she’s never mentioned you.”

“I run in some rather dangerous circles,” said the woman. “I assume she didn’t want to mention her association with me because she would then find herself a target of my enemies.”

“Well, forgive us if we don’t trust ya right away, but we don’t exactly take kindly to nameless folk showin’ up outta nowhere and sayin’ they’re friends of Sunset’s,” said Applejack, reaching to the back of her skirt to grab something. The woman saw this, rolled her eyes in apparent boredom and simply opened her vest, revealing that she had 6- count ‘em- _6_ Glock-19s and enough ammo to load a small army, as well as several knives, the simple sight of which made Applejack back off.

“For now, all you need to know is the story I tell you and my first name; Vanessa,” she said, closing her vest. “Other than that, until I see proof of what I believe Sunset wants to talk about, everything else is on a need-to-know basis.”

“Well, I guess we don’t have much choice,” said Flash as Twilight opened the door. “Let’s go.” With that, they all wandered inside. For some reason, Sunset’s house seemed messier than last time they had been there. They all split up, looking around the house for Sunset with Vanessa apparently looking upstairs, where Sunset had forgotten to clear away the blood bags… and especially not the one she had just ripped open. Walking out, Vanessa drew a cross on her body and then started nibbling her knuckle.

“It’s worse than I thought,” she said quietly, descending back to the first floor.

“Sunset? Where are you?” called Flash.

“Out here!” Sunset’s voice came from outside, prompting everyone to walk out back to find her still digging and covered in dirt. “Thanks for coming so fast guys.” Then her eyes locked onto Vanessa. “Who’s she?”

“What? She said she was friends with you,” said Twilight.

“Are you kidding? I barely even knew who _Pinkie_ was when I first got to town,” said Sunset. “How should I know _her_?”

“By my last name,” said Vanessa, producing a shining silver badge with a Catholic cross inside the star. “I am Vanessa Van Helsing; lead investigator of Hunt-X, a secret investigation agency specializing in the supernatural.”

“Wait, Van Helsing? As in-?” asked Twilight.

“Dr. _Abraham_ Van Helsing? Ja, he is my ancient grandfather,” said Vanessa as she jumped down the hole to land next to Sunset. “He knew about the Blood Sun and knew it would bring Dracula back from the grave, so he gave unto his family line an order; when the Blood Sun rose, we would never rest until Dracula was destroyed permanently.”

“Why not just ride up to his castle and make sure the deed was done _before_ the sun rose?” asked Rainbow.

“It’s been attempted, but Dracula’s castle is too deep in the Carpathians and too heavily fortified for us to make it there and back alive,” said Vanessa. “Trust me; both my parents have already tried.”

“Is that why you called us here Sunset? Because of Dracula?” asked Rarity.

“Yeah,” said Sunset. “Everyone who believed it was right this whole time; he’s real. Real enough to do this.” With that, she dropped her hood to show the others that not only was she much paler than she was yesterday, but somehow the bite-marks on her neck had become apparent enough for the group to see them from the top of the hole.

“Called it!” said Pinkie chipperly, but then she looked around and saw everyone was scowling at her. “Oh. Inappropriate?”

“Wildly so,” said Rarity.

“Yeah so, do you think you can help me Vanessa?” asked Sunset, getting back to shoveling.

“Of course,” she said. “But first I must ask, what in God’s name are you digging for?” Vanessa’s question was suddenly answered when Sunset’s shovel struck something. Something wooden.

“That,” Sunset quickly moved the shovel aside and scraped the dirt out of the way to see a coffin in the ground. Quickly, she took up her shovel again and gave it a good strong swing down on the lid, cracking it enough for Sunset to lever it open. But once it was, she was both confused and angry. “What? Empty?”

**Sonic Prime: Boom! Fake-out! Had ya goin’ there, didn’t I?**

“Wait a second,” said Rainbow. “If Dracula’s real, and you’re a vampire, then does that mean _you’re_ the one who’s been drinking people dry or was it him?” Sunset suddenly felt like facepalming.

“Ugh shit, I forgot all about that,” she said.

“Again, inappropriate dear,” said Rarity.

“It may have been her in body, but it was Dracula in spirit. Besides, if it _was_ him physically, we’d have a lot more than just one vampire to look out for,” said Vanessa. “Have you been experiencing memory loss, lack of appetite, unusual mental and physical developments?”

“Definitely all of the above,” said Sunset, falling against the dirt wall of the hole. “But wait, if I’ve been drinking from as many people as I think I have, then why hasn’t Dracula helped himself to the buffet?” That comment made all of her friends feel uneasy and a few of them placed their hands over their necks.

“It’s as my grandfather wrote in his book, which I see your friend here has,” said Vanessa, climbing out of the hole and indicating to the book Flash had. Flash was confused; the book said, “Author Unknown”, but then looking back at it, he saw that was just a label written on a piece of tape. Tearing it off, he saw that Dr. Abraham Van Helsing did indeed write this book. “True vampires like Dracula only drink what they need to survive; the equivalent of two, sometimes three people a month. Others however, especially those only recently turned, have an insatiable hunger. Though as the Blood Sun was over Transylvania, we heard reports of almost an entire small village being drained dry before we heard about this place. He clearly wanted enough to revert back to his usual form.”

“Pale guy, black hair, eyes like Satan’s?” asked Sunset, as she climbed out after her, hood back over her head.

“How did you know?” asked Vanessa.

“Basically one of the only things I remember from last night is his face,” she said. “But it doesn’t make any sense. I feel like I first _actually_ met him here, so he must’ve hidden here. Where is he?”

“His servant’s backyard would be too easy,” said Vanessa. “As would a graveyard. He wants to be hiding somewhere high enough to have a panoramic view of all his prey, but still hidden enough to not be obvious these days.” Sunset was still feeling a sense of pained remorse for everyone she had drank from; Toe Tapper, Sky Stinger, Vinyl and possibly at least 5 more people. Flash placed a hand on her shoulder, shaking her from her mental pity party.

“It’s gonna be okay Sunny,” he said. “Don’t worry. We’ll fix this.” Sunset looked back at her hands before her hunger could kick in.

“I really want to believe that,” she said. “I just can’t believe I’m a monster. Again!”

“Wait, again?” asked Vanessa.

“Long story, we’ll explain later,” said Rainbow. Flash just moved so that he was facing his new girlfriend.

“Sunset, you’re not a monster,” he said. “You’re still that same girl I fell for all those years ago. And then again earlier this month.”

“I used to think that,” said Sunset. “Just like I used to think Dracula was made up.”

“Don’t you worry Sugarcube,” said Applejack. “You’ve got all of us to watch yer back.”

“Not to mention myself and Hunt-X,” said Vanessa. “I’m friends with the descendants of Dracula’s other enemies; the Harker twins Jennifer and Alexander, Maxwell Seward, Jason Holmwood and I were just here running down a lead on Dracula when Jason reported you feeding last night. I can get in touch and we’ll all meet somewhere to help.” Sunset cleaned her eyes, tears apparently about to fall from them.

“Thank you. All of you,” she said, standing up straight and pulling her hood back. Her skin still scratched, but she didn’t care right now. “You’re honestly taking this a lot easier than I thought you would.

“Well y’know, all things considered, we _have_ already seen you turn into a raging she-d- OW!” Rainbow clutched her side and glanced at Rarity, who was clearly the one who pinched her. She was holding two fingers and was clearly poised to strike again. “Okay, I get it. Inappropriate.”

“Okay, someone seriously needs to fill me in because I am completely lost here,” said Vanessa, running her fingers through her hair.

“Yeah, we’ll give you a crash-course later,” said Rainbow. “For now, you should probably go call your buddies.”

“Good call,” said Vanessa as she walked away toward her car.

Once she was out of ear-shot, Applejack got back to the point. “You _have_ told the princess about this, right?”

“Wrote to her before I called you guys,” said Sunset. “No reply yet though.”

“So… what do we do while we wait?” asked Fluttershy.

“You come with me,” said Vanessa, walking back out of the house. “Maxwell’s set up a safe house on the outskirts of town. We should be able to keep you safe there for now.”

“Ooh! Sleepover!” said Pinkie.

“If you want to think of it that way, then Ja I suppose,” said Vanessa. “Anyway, come with me. I’ll lead you there.”

“Y’know, you’re nothing like what Bram Stoker said your grandfather was like,” said Twilight as they all walked with her.

“Trust me, my friends have told me that exact thing many times before,” said Vanessa. “Vhat can I say? Normalcy must skip a few generations in my family.”

“Preachin’ to the choir there sugarcube,” said Applejack. “You ever meet Pinkie’s folks, you’ll think you’ve got it easy.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” she said as she opened her car door. “After you, Sunset.”

“What? Why?” asked Sunset.

“My family may only _officially_ be after Dracula, but that won’t stop me from keeping an eye on you on the way to the safehouse,” she replied. “For all I know, Dracula’s made a mental link with you much the same as the one he made with Mina Harker.”

“I think I’d remember something like that, even with my memory problems,” said Sunset, having read that part of the book. “But I can understand where you’re coming from. Let’s do it.” With that, she climbed into the car with Vanessa as the others all piled into Fluttershy’s van. Once the van door had closed and Vanessa was sure they couldn’t see her, she pulled a long silver stiletto knife with a cross engraved on the blade out of her vest and pointed it at Sunset, making her worried.

“If I get even the slightest feeling that you may bite me before we reach the safehouse, I won’t hesitate, and neither will any of the others,” she said. “Just bear that in mind.” With that lovely sentiment in mind, Sunset recoiled a bit. Vanessa slipped the blade back into her vest and drove into the street before stopping alongside Fluttershy’s van and rolling down the window. “Whatever you do, do not leave the view of my rearview mirrors until we reach the safehouse. Is that clear?”

“Y-yes ma’am,” said Fluttershy, concerned. Vanessa gave a comforting smile.

“Relax,” she said. “Once we’ve dealt with Dracula, you’ll never have to worry about Hunt-X again. Either way, allons-y.” At that, she rolled her window back up and drove off with Fluttershy staying close behind.

**That little comment about Vanessa being different from her grandpa isn’t just a slip of the finger by the way; Abraham wasn’t actually what most people think of him as these days. In modern interpretations, he’s strictly a painfully serious vampire hunter with a rather poetic tongue but in the book, he appears to be little more than a goofy Dutch physician with a penchant for mangling metaphors. Key-phrase; “Appears to be”. We’ve seen this trope before. And that’s evidenced by the fact that whenever something blatantly vampire-ish happens around him and he’s the only one that gets what’s really going on, the good doctor packs up his whacky mannerisms and equips what most people like myself like to call “Van Helsing Serious Face”. For a barrage of wonderful examples of this “Serious Face”, hit up YouTube and look up Overly Sarcastic Productions’ summary video of Dracula, and what the hell; why not look at a _lot_ of their other stuff while you’re at it? Seriously, those guys are hilarious.**


	6. "Fang"-tastic

The group drove for a good few hours before they finally arrived outside a large church/military compound-like building with a large iron and silver cross on the roof. There was a single man outside; light brown hair and green eyes wearing what looked like clergymen’s robes and carrying a Bible, though he also had a holster on his leg.

“How have things been here, Alex?” asked Vanessa as she and the others walked over.

“Fairly quiet,” said the man in a Londoner’s accent. “We’ve got the place prepped; bovine blood bags in the fridge, windows bolted with crosses and garlic on all of ‘em, spiritual barrier and holy water moat ready to be set, the ‘ole package.”

“Uitstekend,” said Vanessa, turning to the others. “Girls, this is Friar Alexander Harker; our squadron’s resident holy man.”

“Evenin’, loves,” he said, bowing to them. “Please come in. Vampires first.” Sunset almost cringed at this but walked in, seemingly pained by the fact that unless they fixed this situation soon, she would have to rely on people inviting her into places for the rest of her life. Once inside, she saw three more people; another girl around Alex’s age with brown eyes and hair to match, wearing a simple woman’s suit and two more men; one a blonde with glasses over his blue eyes wearing a black sweater and leather lab-coat, and the other with black hair and green eyes wearing a suit of body armor. “Our guests are here, folks.”

“Ah lovely,” said the blonde man. “Good day. My name is Dr. Maxwell Seward, our team’s lead scientist and cartographer. This is Brother Harker’s sister Jennifer; our vampire expert, and of course Mr. Jason Holmwood; our armorer.”

“Pretty diverse crowd you’ve got here,” said Flash.

“Coming from you, Mr. Sentry? I take that as a compliment,” said Vanessa. “Besides, we all have reason to be on the same team; Dracula tormented our ancestors, and now we’re here to return the favor.”

“So, how are we going to do this?” asked Sunset.

“Simple,” said Vanessa. “We’ll be keeping you locked in the compound here with your friends and the others.”

“What about you?” Applejack’s question was answered by Vanessa pulling out one of her pistols and loading it with a smirk.

“I’m going vampire-hunting,” she smirked as the gun-slide locked into place. After that, she left on an old-fashioned motorcycle as everyone looked around the compound. Alex let a large amount of holy water flood out of the complex’s piping into an iron-plated moat and empowered an iron line around the compound to keep any unholy being out. While looking around, Rainbow grew curious about something.

“Seriously?” She was pointing at one of the bundles of garlic flowers in the living room window which was tied to hold a crucifix up, with an incredulous look in her eye.

“They work,” said Jennifer, grabbing one off the counter. “Observe.” With that, she thrust the flower into Sunset’s face, and she let out an involuntary hiss as she backed away, her fangs slightly showing. With that, Jennifer pulled the flower back and smirked at Rainbow. “I rest my case.”

“Okay, okay, I get it; don’t question a bunch of seasoned vampire hunters,” said Rainbow walking over to the lounge.

“Seasoned? Ha! Are you joking?” asked Jason as he was tossing a grenade up and down like a ball. “We’re only working off of what notes our ancestors left us when _they_ were fighting Dracula. We’ve never even _seen_ a real vampire before today, let alone hunted one.”

“Not that that’s stopped Vanessa,” said Maxwell, looking through an old book of fairly recent newspaper clippings. “She’s torn up towns every time something even _vaguely_ vampire-ish has happened.”

“Uh, speaking of which, I don’t feel so good,” said Sunset, hand on her head and a red haze drifting across her vision. “We still have some blood bags in the fridge, right?”

“Should be plenty,” said Alex in understanding. Sunset quickly zipped into the kitchen and threw open the refrigerator. Ordinarily, she would’ve questioned a person having enough bags of cow blood in their fridge to fill two drawers more than she questioned why Pinkie’s fridge was loaded with almost literally nothing except whipped-cream, but right now all she could think of was sating her hunger for blood. She quickly grabbed one and bit into it. She had done so painlessly enough earlier that night, but this time it wouldn’t go down. To her, it was far too bitter which prompted her to spit the bag out, letting its juices splatter onto the ground in front of her and making her dry-heaving at it.

“ _What are you doing?_ ” Her vampire instincts screamed at her as she tried to get her balance back. “ _Feeding on dead cow blood when there are **11** perfectly healthy young people right down the hall? A free buffet!_”

“No! I can’t!” Sunset groaned and reached for her jacket pocket. She had managed to grab one of the bags of human blood from her desk before they left and right now, it seemed really appetizing. But when she reached into her pocket, she was terrified to feel loose plastic and sticky congealing fluid. Pulling the pouch out of her pocket, she saw it had been punctured and was leaking everywhere. “No. No-no-no-no! Cmon!” She quickly guzzled down the quarter of the bag that was left and licked the remnants from her fingers, praying that was enough. But it wasn’t. Her human and vampire minds argued in her brain for what felt like hours until her vampire instincts took over.

“Okay, she’s been in there _way_ too long,” said Rainbow, staring at the kitchen door.

“Agreed,” said Maxwell. “Unless she’s fully pigging out in there, it shouldn’t be taking this long.” Suddenly, the lights went out and the fans in the ventilation system died.

“Ohh, this bodes poorly,” said Rarity as she fetched up her flashlight. Quickly, everyone followed her lead and burst into the kitchen. They all looked around until Flash saw something on the floor.

“Uh-oh,” was all he could muster. The others looked where his light was pointing and the two bags Sunset had left there.

“Split up. Search the whole compound,” said Jason, handing everyone a bag of grenades. “Before entering a room, throw one of these in. They’re filled with holy water laced with silver, so if anyone hears any burning or screeching, run and group up in the lounge.”

“Got it,” The girls were all a bit concerned about having to basically attack their friend, but there was no arguing with professionals. The compound was huge; so much so that it was very likely that someone would get lost just looking for Sunset. Flash was feeling very unsure about this whole thing until he heard what sounded like someone tapping a fingernail against the window of a nearby bedroom. Quietly slipping to the door, he placed his ear to it and listened.

“Ah, there you are Master,” said a voice that was obviously Sunset’s before she apparently threw the window open. “I’ve been expecting you. Please come in.”

“Thank you, my servant,” said a man in a Romanian accent. Flash knew that this guy could only be one person; Dracula himself. Unfortunately, his knowledge of this only made him more scared and this rose his heart rate to the point where he could almost hear it. And he was certain Dracula and Sunset could hear it as well. “It seems we have a volunteer for my feeding.” That confirmed it. “If you would?”

“Yes master,” said Sunset before suddenly shooting his hands through the door and grabbing Flash by the mouth with one and his torso with the other, pulling him through to the ground on his knees. Whirling onto his back, he saw not only the Vampire King himself but also an unusual-looking Sunset. Her eyes were as blood red as Dracula’s, hypnotic and glowing with hunger and lust. Short fangs protruded from her upper lip, gleaming pearl white with saliva and razor-sharp. Her normally controlled hair was a wild mess, hanging around her shoulders and now pointed ears in an almost fire-like terrifying beauty.

“Ah, an excellent specimen Sunset,” said Dracula. Flash just shuddered. Even with everything he’d already witnessed before, staring the most dangerous vampire in history dead in the eye was on a whole new level. Sunset smirked as she picked him up, her somehow sharpened nails tearing small holes in his shirt. His flashlight was on the ground pointed away from the vampires and just out of reach of Flash himself. He knew he had at least one holy water grenade left and every instinct in his mind was yelling at him to reach around to it and press the trigger-switch, but Sunset’s burning eyes seemed to make him not want to.

“Forgive me, Master,” she said, placing a cold finger under Flash’s chin and lifting his head. “But this one is mine. There are plenty more elsewhere though, and they are all yours. Just leave Flash to me. I’m feeling daring tonight, and I’m anxious to see how he… tastes.”

Flash gulped in bone-chilling fear and nervousness as he felt Sunset trailing a finger around his fly. “I think I need an adult.”

“I _am_ an adult,” said Dracula with a sadistic smile.

Flash mentally facepalmed, realizing he was right. “ _Yeah okay, I guess I should’ve seen that one coming._ ”

“I can handle him myself, Master,” said Sunset. “You go gather some more servants and get your revenge. I’ll be having _my_ meal right here.”

“If you insist,” said Dracula as he started to walk away. But just before he reached the door, he turned back and looked at Flash with a cruel smile. “But first, do you have any last words?”

Flash just glared at Dracula as he reached up to the back of his jacket. “Just six;” he said, looking back at Sunset. “Sorry in advance for this, Sunny.” With that, he quickly pulled the grenade and pressed the button, making it beep a little.

“What the-?!” Sunset’s angry yell was quickly silenced by the grenade bursting in vapor and the two vampires letting out shrill pained cries. Sunset dropped Flash as the blessed liquid burned her skin, allowing him to grab his flashlight and shine it at the two, forcing them to recoil into a corner away from the window.

“Whoo! Okay, if I make it outta this alive, I will never think less of the Church again,” he said.

“Why, thank you,” said a voice behind him. Flash was a bit spooked but his mood returned to normal when he saw Alex there, flashlight in one hand and nine-millimeter pistol in the other. “Good evening Ms. Shimmer. And… Count Dracula, I presume?”

“Indeed,” growled the count, trying to hide the two of them from the light with his cape. “And know I will make your deaths all-the-more painful for that little stunt.”

“Not so Dracula,” said Alex. “For you shall now face not just Hunt-X, but the Wrath of God as well.” Suddenly…

“Begone, foul demon!” Pinkie tossed a few cloves of garlic at the two vampires, one nailing Dracula right in the eye.

“Gah! Urgh!” He glared at Pinkie with an intense hatred in his red eyes, almost burning at the light. “Your death… will be written of… as my greatest work… of barbarism yet!” With that, he grabbed Sunset by the arm and flew them both out the window, gliding out into the night. Everyone gathered in the room with Jennifer picking up the clove Pinkie had hit Dracula in the eye with.

“Yeah…” she said in a monotone voice. “It works better if you cut it.”

“That… actually makes sense,” Pinkie’s absentmindedness made the entire room facepalm and groan in angst. Now they had _two_ vampires to deal with. Great.

**Now in case you’re wondering, the descendants of the other main Dracula characters aren’t actually much like their ancestors here except for the fact that they all hate Dracula’s guts. For instance, Maxwell’s grandfather Dr. John Seward was, in reality, the administrator at an insane asylum, where he conducts frequent interviews with a loon named Renfield and is not actually a cartographer. The Harker twins are also different from their grandparents; whereas Jennifer is an expert on all things vampire-lore, her grandmother Mina was a schoolmistress (which you’d think would inconvenience her students what with the whole vampire thing, but that whole thing actually happened in Summer, so yeah) and whereas Alexander is a holy man, the perfect thing to have on a team of vampire hunters, by the way, Grandpa Jonathan was a solicitor sent to Dracula’s castle to oversee the logistics of the Count’s moving to England (again with the operatic BS-itude of Victorian vampires). Also sometime between his escape from Dracula’s castle and Mina finding him in Budapest, his hair turned white with fear so that’s a good sign. And then we have Jason Holmwood; armory supervisor for Vanessa Van Helsing’s vampire-hunting vendetta team, whereas his Granddad Arthur was some sort of nobleman. Huh. Y’know the more I look into this sort of stuff, the more I realize that Vanessa is the only one who really stayed true to her ancestor’s ways. Weird, huh?**


	7. Let the Hunt Begin

Vanessa had returned and fetched a drink of water for Flash along with a crucifix to wear just in case. The image of Sunset’s hungry face and Dracula’s smug smirk was still seared into his eyes, and he doubted anything would fix that. “ _And I’m anxious to see how he… tastes._ ” He shivered as he remembered that. Maybe it was just the holy water from the grenade soaking into his clothes, but the room felt a lot colder, even with the power back on and cranking the heaters. The girls had given Vanessa and her team a crash-course on what had been happening in Canterlot for the last few months, and obviously, they were flabbergasted before returning to the objective at hand.

“Right, so here’s what we know so far,” said Alexander, pulling out a small clipboard. “Somehow, Dracula managed to get past _all_ of the holy barriers I set up and infiltrate our compound with Sunset’s help. And now, they’re both loose in the city and it appears Sunset is fully giving in to her vampiric instincts. The only way we can save her now is if we find Dracula and destroy him before they have the chance to reduce the people of this city to either shriveled corpses or legions of other vampiric followers. So if anyone has any ideas on where to start, now would be a good time.”

“I vote that we find Sunset, tie her down and force her to tell us where he is,” said Rainbow.

“No, that won’t work,” said Jason, loading a Remington 870 shotgun with holy silver slugs. “Dracula never takes his prey back to where he’s hiding.” Then Twilight snapped her fingers.

“But he does tend to hide somewhere in plain sight,” she said. Maxwell was gradually growing interested as he adjusted his glasses.

“You have something, I assume?” he asked.

“Indeed I do,” said Twilight. “Recall that Dracula’s first home in England, Carfax, wasn’t too far from the asylum where your grandfather Dr. John worked. If he still has that habit…”

“Then he’ll be hiding somewhere so painfully obvious, we would dismiss it as being too easy,” said Vanessa, putting the pieces together. “That’s genius.”

“Well, I suppose it’s worth a try,” said Jennifer. “Any ideas?”

Everyone gave it a bit of thinking before Applejack snapped her fingers. “Ah think Ah’ve got one,” she smiled. “Remember the day she got bit? She said Drac was askin’ fer directions to the Shady Oaks motel.”

“Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait, you honestly think an undead blood-sucking count from 15th century Transylvania is hiding out in a dingy motel room?” asked Jason. “That’s ridiculous.”

“And Ah suppose you’ve got a better idea?” Applejack lashed back at him, making him look off to one side noncommittedly. “That’s what Ah thought.”

“Well I’d honestly have to agree with Jason ma’am,” said Alex, laying a map of town out on the table. “Shady Oaks is here, to the southeast of our location. But Sunset and Dracula flew up north, which could only mean one thing; if they _are_ going back to the motel, they’re taking a scenic route. Snacks provided.”

“But more likely, they’re heading out for a night on the town,” said Rarity. “I see where you’re going with this. Though I can hardly say I agree with their ideas of dressing for a good night out. I mean, I’m all for gothic retro every now and then, but Dracula should at least consider wearing lighter colors these days. Draw less attention to himself, you know?”

“Not our number one problem right now, Rarity,” said Rainbow as she got up. “We’ve gotta follow them. Now!”

“Hmph. I suppose,” Rarity could honestly be kind of cute when she was being indignant.

“Alright then,” said Maxwell, loading two M1911s onto his belt and grabbing a few mags of holy ammo with the others following suit; Jennifer grabbed two Uzis, Alex grabbed up his Silver Ghost pistol and Jason loaded himself down with the shotgun, an M16 and a Desert Eagle. Vanessa also grabbed something; a large black suitcase. The others weren’t sure what was in it, but they weren’t sure they wanted to know either. “As of this moment, the seven of you are officially deputized into Hunt-X’s hunters battalion. Welcome aboard.” With that, he passed them all a silver-bladed knife with sheath. “Now let’s go vampire-hunting.”

“One problem mate,” said Alex. “We don’t have a vehicle big enough or fast enough for all of us to keep pace with two vampires.”

“W-We can take my van,” said Fluttershy. “It’s not _very_ fast, but it should be enough.”

Vanessa looked at her fellows and shrugged. “Alright then, let’s go,” said Alex. “You’re driving, Ms. Shy.” With that, they all walked out to the van and loaded up. It was the tiniest bit cramped with twelve people on board, but they made do.

Rainbow leaned over to Alex in the back as Fluttershy backed out of the compound’s parking log. “Uh, Al? Are you sure you don’t want me… or _anyone_ else to drive?” she asked. “I mean this is kind of an emergency and, no offense Shy, but-” Her statement was suddenly interrupted when Fluttershy slammed her foot down on the throttle, sending the van peeling down the road to the north, with a surprisingly straight even confident look on her face. “Okay, this is happening!”

“Sheesh. And I thought _you_ were a reckless driver Vanessa,” Jennifer was terrified as well, surprised to see her team’s most stalwart hunter with a look of shock and almost fear on her face. Alex was currently praying for his life as Rarity leaned up to the driver’s seat.

“Um, Fluttershy? Darling? I appreciate your enthusiasm, don’t get me wrong, but we won’t be much help to Sunset if we all die in a car crash,” she said, straining to keep her fear-induced anger under control.

“O-oh um, right,” said Fluttershy, quickly raising her foot off the gas pedal and letting the van slow down to under the speed limit.

Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief with Alex saying “Thank you Lord for teaching me fear” and blessing himself. Finally, Flash’s stomach caught up with himself, doing a few somersaults before he quickly rolled open the window and let the cool, fresh night air flow into the vehicle.

“Okay, we’re on the north side,” said Rainbow. “What do we do now?” Pinkie simply shoved her face past Flash’s and let out a loud whistle.

“Here, Sunpire! Come here, girl! Cmon!” she called, whistling some more.

“Oh for-! She’s a _vampire_ , not a werewolf!” said Vanessa, facepalming. “And even if she _was_ a werewolf, that trick still wouldn’t work.”

“Why Sunpire?” asked Jason.

“ _That’s_ your first question?” asked Maxwell.

“What? It’s a legitimate one,” retorted Jason.

“Because her name’s Sunset and she’s a vampire,” said Pinkie, pulling her head back in. “Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“No! No, it does not!” said Jennifer incredulously.

“Very little does around Pinkie Pie,” said Twilight. “I thought we established this back at the compound!”

“People, focus!” said Rarity, snapping her fingers. “And quiet down. You could lead them right to us if you don’t.”

“Too late!” said a familiar voice. Everyone looked out the side window saw Sunset’s face upside-down in the open window. They all screamed and Fluttershy slammed on the brakes. Too fast, shaking the van off the road and into a ditch. Quickly everyone bailed out and huddled up, seeing Sunset now standing on top of a suspiciously dead lamppost.

“Sunset darling, could you please come down from there?” asked Rarity. “And possibly let us help you turn you back to normal?”

“To answer your questions in reverse order; no and yes, but only if I get a drink out of it,” she replied, baring her fangs. Everyone subconsciously reached a hand to their necks and covered them. “Then no to both.”

“Ah, cmon! You can’t actually _like_ being a vampire, right?” asked Rainbow.

Sunset just chuckled as Applejack leaned over to her. “Seems like she’s enjoyin’ it enough to me,” she whispered.

“Are you kidding?” asked Sunset, still chuckling cruelly. “I _love it_! No inhibitions, _waaay_ more power than I could ever get from Equestria. Hell, I can do anything I want!” She eyed each of them in turn, ending on Flash with the same hungry look on her face as earlier. “Provided I have a good meal every now and then.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Great. The megalomaniac’s back.”

“And she’s thirsty,” Sunset smirked as she started walking down the side of the lamppost, before kneeling ready to pounce. “So… who’s first on the menu?” Her eyes quickly locked with Flash’s. “Flash, m’boy? Wanna treat me to dinner?”

“What’s the plan?” whispered Jason.

“Wait until she attacks, then aim to wound,” whispered Vanessa.

“Sunset cmon, we’re your friends,” said Twilight. “You wouldn’t bite us.”

“Quite the opposite,” said Sunset as she stood back up on the pole. “If you _were_ my friends, you’d _want_ me to bite you. Maybe even turn you.” Then she raised an arm to her forehead and sighed dramatically. “Or would you rather let your best friend dry of starvation?”

“Wow. And we think _Rarity’s_ overdramatic,” Rainbow whispered to AJ.

“After all, don’t friends let their vampire friends drink their blood?” asked Sunset, returning to her usual position.

“Mmm-no, I don’t think that’s in the friend code,” said Pinkie.

“I think of them more as guidelines personally,” said Sunset, returning to her pouncing position.

“Eh. It’s a matter of perspective really,” said Twilight.

“And our perspective is…?” asked Rainbow.

“Definite code,” said Flash, still holding his hand over his neck.

“Y’know what, doesn’t matter anyways,” said Sunset, eyes once again locking onto Flash. “Imma drink you now.” With that, she pounced off the lamppost toward him.

“Now! Weapons free! Aim to wound!” yelled Vanessa, prompting her whole team to pull their handguns and open fire on the vampire, blasting her with holy silver bullets. These slowed her down for a few minutes, allowing Flash to run away and put some distance between himself and Sunset.

“Y’know Sunset, you are becoming really undatable right now!” he yelled back to her.

“Aw come on Flashy, I just wanna bite you,” she said, her bullet-wounds slowly healing. “No hard feelings, right?”

“Okay, that does it!” said Rainbow as she zipped over, fingers clutched tightly around her knife. “This is for your own good!” Unfortunately, she was too slow as Sunset quickly zipped around behind her, grabbing her arm and twisting it around behind her back, making her drop her knife and howl in pain as Sunset pinned her to the lamppost.

“Ohohoho Dash, so brave… so stupid…” Sunset growled.

“Hold your fire!” said Vanessa, prompting her team to move their trigger-fingers away. “Don’t harm the civilian!”

“Sunset, you’re breaking my arm!” cried Rainbow.

“As I recall, you were trying to punch me,” said Sunset. “Anyway, I don’t want you anyway.” With that, she loosened her grip and looked in Flash’s direction. “My dinner’s off that way and I’m hungry!” With that, she tossed Rainbow into Vanessa and the others before she took off running down the street, arms held out behind her.

“You know you’re Naruto Running, right?!” asked Pinkie. She wasn’t certain but she was pretty sure Sunset flipped her off once she said that. “Okay, now that’s just rude.”

“Shut up and help us with the van, will ya Pinkie?” asked Applejack, herself, Jason and Maxwell already propped against the bumper. Pinkie shrugged and skipped over to help push it back onto the road.

“Whew. Okay,” said Maxwell as he climbed in. “We have to stop her and help Flash before sunrise. And once that’s done, our only priority is finding and destroying Dracula.”

“Agreed,” said Fluttershy as she quickly hopped into the driver’s seat. The others quickly joined her onboard, with Vanessa apparently feeling the need to take her suitcase up into the roof. On top, it sounded like she was putting something together until the sound suddenly stopped.

“Jason, do you mind?” she asked, lowering the large still-open case.

“Cheers love,” said Jason as he grabbed the case and pulled it into the van, letting the others see the imprint of what was inside it.

“Tell me that’s not what Ah think it is,” said Applejack in shock and terror.

“If you think it’s a Barret M82 .50 caliber semi-automatic anti-material sniper rifle with attached bipod and loaded with rubber bullets, then I’m afraid you’re right,” said Vanessa, setting up the legs on the very same weapon she had just described.

“Oh good,” said Applejack relieved. “Fer a second there, I thought-”

“What, that I had this thing loaded with live holy silver ammo?” asked Vanessa. “Cmon I’m dedicated, but I’m not crazy. Now let’s move!” With that, Fluttershy took off down the street after their vampiric friend.

Flash had managed to make it a good few yards away from the crash-site, veering off into the woods to try and make himself harder to find before he got tired and had to stop, bending over and putting his hands on his knees. A quick glance over his shoulder and it appeared that he had in fact lost Sunset, but then when he looked back in front of him… “Hi.” Sunset was literally right in front of him. Flash jumped and backed away, bumping into a tree. Sunset giggled as she cupped a hand on his face. “Y’know, you’re actually really cute when you think you’re being smart.” Her grip wasn’t that strong; Flash knew he could probably overpower her, but for some reason, he didn’t want to. He stared into Sunset’s longing red eyes, nearly seeing his own reflection in them. “It’s kinda awesome being a vampire, Flash. Like I said, no inhibitions and just enough power to meet my old wishes without going full demon. The perfect balance of freedom and clarity.”

“Then why do I feel like this isn’t actually you talking, Sunset?” asked Flash.

Sunset raised her other hand and traced Flash’s collarbone with her finger. “Reality is subjective, baby. I’m Sunset, just without all those pesky morals to tie me down, and driven by a thirst that you wouldn’t believe…” She moved her mouth to his ear and whispered this next part. “And not just for your blood either.”

There it is again; the same weird combination of arousal and mortal dread Flash had felt at the compound. “ _Cmon guys, where the hell are you when I need you?_ ”

Sunset wrapped an arm around Flash’s hip as she straddled him. “Cmon Flashy. Join me,” she said. “It doesn’t hurt too much, and we can just forget Dracula and hunt to our hearts’ content every night, sharing blood. Among other things.”

 _That_ was very nearly the straw that broke the camel’s back, as Flash snapped out of it. “Sunset cmon, you know this isn’t actually you. Dracula has you under some sort of weird trance. Just snap out of it!” Sunset quieted his terrified rant with a finger on his lips.

“The only trance I’m under right now is your hypnotic handsomeness,” she smiled.

“Ugh, put _that_ on a Valentine,” Flash muttered. “Sunset, cmon! Stop it!” He struggled more, trying to look literally anywhere but at Sunset’s eyes, but he couldn’t move. Then he suddenly felt Sunset’s hand on the small of his back, sending a jolt up his spine that he couldn’t ignore. His eyes locked back at Sunset’s, which were now a deeper shade of red, causing a red haze to slide across his vision as he stopped resisting.

“Flash, just stop trying,” said Sunset. “You have no idea how bad I’ve really wanted you these past few weeks. Trust me. Just one drink… then you’ll be begging me to turn you.” With that, her fangs extended and Flash could feel himself almost ready to pass out. “Ah-tut-tut-tut-tut-tut. Not yet, baby. I want you awake for your first time.”

“ _Okay, that’s about ten pounds of ‘nope’ in a quarter-pound bag!_ ” thought Flash, but there was nothing he could do to stop Sunset quickly plunging her fangs into his neck except give a pained yell before his entire body locked up. He could feel Sunset draining away his blood, yet his heart was still pounding. “ _Cmon body, WORK WITH ME HERE!_ ” Unfortunately, he clearly should’ve been more specific as one of his hands found its way around Sunset’s neck and the other to one of her breasts. “ _NOT LIKE THAT!_ ” Sunset moaned as she felt his touch and decided to reciprocate, pushing deeper into his neck and moving one hand to his jeans, undoing the button. “ _Okay, no!_ ” Finally the red haze cleared and just before he could shoot his knee up into Sunset’s abdomen, a loud gunshot echoed through the woods and hit Sunset right in the midsection, prompting her to tear away from Flash in pain, leaving a still bleeding hole on his neck, which he quickly covered with one hand. Glancing up to one side, he saw the van not far away with Vanessa on the roof holding the .50-cal. His vision was swimming and his body felt incredibly weak but he tried his best to push himself up the tree and look at Sunset.

The only sound he heard from her for a second was her ragged breathing from the bullet until she let out a small sob. She pulled in a sharp, shaky breath as she glanced up at Flash, one eye red and one its usual teal, the latter flooding with tears. “I’m sorry.” That was clearly all she could bring herself to say before she ran off deeper into the woods. Flash knew the others were coming to help him, but that didn’t matter as just before they reached him, he fell on his side to the forest floor.

“ _It’s okay Sunset…_ ” he thought. “ _I forgive you…_ ” With that, he slipped into unconsciousness. What to do now?


	8. Hunting Season

When Flash finally managed to rouse himself from his unconsciousness, he saw Spike was looking after him with the others nearby, almost all loading up.

“Look who’s back,” Flash had never gotten used to Spike talking, even after everything he’d seen and experienced. Looking around, he saw he was on a medical bed back at the compound with a transfusion bag hooked up to him and his neck thoroughly bandaged. Then he remembered what happened to bring him here in the first place.

“Sunset!” he yelled as he quickly shot into a sitting position, but the pain in his neck quickly forced him to lie back down.

“Whoa there Nelly,” said Applejack adjusting him. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere anytime soon. Not after the meal Sunset made of ya.” Flash groaned as he lied down, feeling the bite-mark still stinging.

“How much?” Clearly, he was asking how much blood Sunset got out of him, but the others were hesitant to answer.

“Almost three liters,” said Twilight. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Agreed,” said Vanessa. “I’m just shocked you didn’t lose much more while we were en route here.” Flash leaned gently up and ran through the earlier events in his mind.

“ _Sunset drained me… And she…_ ” He moved his hand down to his pants and groaned, remembering how Sunset had almost turned him into a human raisin and raped him in the process. If it weren’t for that lucky shot Vanessa got off, how much farther would she have been willing to go? “So what now?”

“Thankfully I partially lied about that bullet I hit Sunset with,” said Vanessa, pulling out her smartphone and turning the screen to turn on some sort of GPS screen. “It was almost full rubber, but there was one metal component; an injector.”

“And what did it inject?” asked Twilight.

“Thankfully… A tracking device” said Vanessa. “With it, locating her will be much easier. And with luck, when we find her, we’ll find Dracula and we can finally end this madness.”

“Well, I’m going with you,” said Flash as he started to get up again.

“No you’re not,” said Alex, forcing him back down onto the bed and quickly blessing him. “You’ve already lost almost all your blood once. You’ll be staying here while you’ve healed.”

“Hate to remind you, but this compound isn’t exactly vampire-proof,” said Flash, reminding him of earlier that same night.

“We dealt with that,” said Maxwell. “Someone knocked some soil over the barriers. We’ve since cleaned it off thus returning the compound to its former impregnable state. You’ll be safe while we go hunting.”

“Remember, our only priority target is Dracula,” said Vanessa, loading all her guns and checking her knives as well as slinging two AK-47s onto her back by straps. “Aim to wound with Sunset no matter what.”

“Yes ma’am,” said the others as Flash pushed Alex away and walked to the armory with them. Once there, he pulled on a heavy Kevlar vest, grabbed two Desert Eagles and a tactical shotgun as well as two large silver machetes which he latched to his back. He also slipped two silver spiked knuckle-dusters onto his hands and cracked his neck.

“Try to stop me if you want to,” he said, clearly still weak. “But Sunset’s _my_ girlfriend. If I’m not there to help save her, she’ll have my head. So I’m going. End of story.”

Vanessa smiled at him. “Tell me… is this what you Americans call gumption?”

“That or bull-headedness,” said Applejack, patting him on the shoulder. “Either way, I’m sure she’ll appreciate it, Flash.”

“You sure you’re good to fight?” asked Rainbow. Flash smirked as he locked a mag into his shotgun and cocked it.

“You wanna try and stop me to find out?” he asked back.

Rainbow just gave him a confident chuckle as she sheathed her knife. “Now that’s what I like to hear!”

“Either way, we’d best get going,” said Jennifer, watching the tracking device. “Sunset’s covered significant ground since we tagged her. It looks like she’s heading out west.”

“West? But that doesn’t make any sense,” said Twilight. “The only things out that way are Camp Everfree and the old church. And I know she’s not going to camp. So why would she go to the church?”

“She probably wants to see if God will forgive and help her,” said Alex. “I say we act as the Lord’s Hand in this context.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Twilight. With that, they all loaded back up back into the van and punched it toward the old chapel. Upon arrival, it did indeed appear very old; cracking wood and broken windows, and the cross and bell from the steeple had fallen and crashed to the ground years ago. “This is probably a trap.” Then Pinkie felt something.

“Whoa! Eye-droop, hair-sag, elbow-creak,” she said, her left eye drooping, hair sagging to the right and left elbow creaking. “Someone’s definitely in there, and they’re sad.”

“What? How did you get that from that?” asked Vanessa, confused.

“She calls it her Pinkie Sense,” said Rainbow. “Weird stuff happens to her, it usually means something. Everyone in town believes it, but I can understand why you’re hesitant.”

“Well, since it’s _her_ sixth sense, what say she goes first?” asked Jason, M16 primed and ready.

“Okie-dokie-lokie!” Pinkie’s jovial attitude really helped lessen the tension of the moment. Carefully putting her ear to the door, she certainly heard that someone was crying inside.

“ **I must feed! It’s my nature!** ” It was easy to tell it was Sunset talking, but her voice seemed to jump between two separate personalities every few seconds. “No! It’s not! I’m done drinking tonight! I’m full! **You can’t _not_ feed! You crave it, admit it!** I crave a lot of things! Doesn’t mean I get to have them! **Oh for- are you _still_ mad about Flash?** Well, that’s _fucking obvious, isn’t it?!_ ” Pinkie was taken aback by that outburst. Was she sure this was her friend talking in there? Unfortunately, she was so surprised that she stepped back hard enough to make the step break in half.

“Uh-oh,” was all she could muster. Quickly understanding the situation, the others all quickly took cover in the church’s unattended graveyard just as Sunset suddenly kicked open the broken church-doors, sending shrapnel everywhere. Pinkie only managed to dodge it with a last-second duck, but she knew she wouldn’t have that same luck with extricating her foot from the broken wood.

“Well, well, well…” she said in a savage voice, her eyes flashing red. “If it isn’t little Pinkie Pie.”

“H-Hey Sunny,” Pinkie’s normally jovial voice was _saturated_ with apparent fear, making all the others worried, as they only knew they were legitimately screwed when Pinkie was scared of something. “How ya doing?”

“Honestly? Really bipolar right now,” said Sunset, feeling her right eye apparently shifting to teal. A quick bonk in the side of the head and it was red again. “You know how when the TV won’t stay working for long enough for you to watch your show? That’s what my head feels like right now. My other me is trying to claw its way out like a rabid dog.”

“Wouldn’t rabid bat be more appropriate?” Pinkie’s attempt to break the tension was only met by a smirking blood-red glare from Sunset.

“Honestly? I think you’re right about that,” she said. “By the way, I hope you don’t mind but I am starving.”

“Sunset cmon, we’re friends,” said Pinkie. But this just succeeded in making Sunset groan.

“Again with the friend-card,” she said. “How many times are you guys going to try and play that?”

“Until our hands are empty,” said Pinkie. Sunset understood what she was getting at, and her true self still clawed for freedom, screaming at her vampire mind that this was wrong. But the bloodlust paid her no mind as she returned to Pinkie.

“Well in that case… time to go all in!” She quickly allowed her fangs to extend before she moved to plunge them straight into Pinkie’s neck. But just before they made contact, Sunset heard what sounded like a silenced gunshot go off from behind one of the gravestones nearby and a small projectile flying toward her own neck. Quickly, she shot her right hand up and grabbed the object, revealed to be what looked like a tranquilizer dart. Looking off behind the gravestone it had come from, she saw Maxwell standing up behind it holding a dart gun.

Sunset just smirked as she let Pinkie go and walk in his direction, chuckling. “Credit where it’s due Max,” she said. “You almost got me there. Just a little faster on the trigger and a little more quiet and you would’ve won. But cmon; a tranq dart against a damn vampire? Heh! I think we both knew what the outcome for that would be.”

“Yes, we did. Which is why that’s not actually a tranquilizer dart,” said Maxwell, gaining a similarly cocky smirk. “It’s my own invention; the outer shell of the projectile is lined with a combination of lysergic acid and a special formula I designed to allow your human side full control of your body and all your vampiric powers for three hours after oh say, 5 to 10 seconds upon initial skin contact. Even the tips of your fingers.”

“Wait, WHAT?!” asked Sunset instantly terrified. Suddenly she dropped the dart and gripped her head, screaming out in pain as she doubled over into the walkway up to the church, falling to her knees and bending in almost every possible position before she fell to her knees on the cobblestone walkway, panting.

Flash was the first to dare to venture out from behind his gravestone hideaway and walk toward her, pistol drawn just in case. “S-Sunset?” He touched his free hand to her shoulder, making her glance up at him with the teal eyes the group were all used to.

She started shuddering as tears started welling up in her bright eyes as she saw Flash behind her, suddenly turning and throwing her arm around her boyfriend, crying her eyes and heart out. “I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry!” Her loud sobs echoed throughout the woods stirring all sorts of wildlife from their slumber in a sort-of sense of irritation.

“Shh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh, it’s okay Sunny,” said Flash, stroking her hair and getting it more under control in the process. “Let it _all_ out… Cmon, let’s get you inside.” With that in mind, he gently picked her up and carried her inside, though she was still crying for all she was worth. Once they were inside, Applejack realized something.

“Wait a sec,” she said. “If you had that dart this whole time, why didn’t you use it sooner?”

“Because I didn’t,” said Maxwell. “I just improvised it in my lab while Flash was out.”

“Wait, improvised? You mean you didn’t know if it would’ve actually worked?” asked Twilight.

“How could I? All I had to work with at the time was Acid, holy water, and minced garlic water,” said Maxwell. “Besides, it got the job done didn’t it?” Everyone’s jaws dropped upon hearing that, and Rarity’s eyes slowly slid over to Rainbow.

“Rainbow Dash, Darling,” she said. “Do you recall all those times I’ve called you reckless since I met you?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I take them all back. _This_ is true recklessness.”

“Look forget it, let’s just get in there and plan out our next move,” said Maxwell as he walked over, helped Pinkie extricate her foot and walked into the church’s foyer.

“Reckless or not, there’s always been one universal truth about Maxwell,” said Jason to no one in particular. “He gets results.”


	9. Final Showdown

Once everyone had gathered in the church, they saw Flash was still snuggling Sunset to calm her down, which was succeeding slowly but surely.

“How’re you doing?” Twilight sat down on Flash’s opposite side and gave her friend a look of concern.

Sunset lifted her face from Flash’s shoulder and looked at her friend, eyes pink and puffy from her massive crying fit. “About as well as I can,” Her voice was still shaky as she pulled herself up into a seated position, though still holding onto Flash. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to have you guys as my friends in my life.”

“Hey, what’re friends for if not saving friends from themselves?” Rainbow’s clearly rhetorical question got a weak, but still amused chuckle from Sunset before she looked up at Flash.

“So… about earlier… I am just-” She was quickly interrupted by a single finger pressed against her lips and Flash’s caring blue eyes shining into hers.

“All is forgiven, as long as you do one thing,” he smirked as he wrapped an arm around her waist. “Don’t fight back.” Sunset was confused as to what he meant, but this quickly deteriorated into shock as Flash quickly locked his lips onto hers. She had kissed him plenty of times when they were dating before, but those were all forced, quick pecks. She had almost never felt this sort of passion before. And as if that wasn’t enough, her hand dropped to his and activated her powers causing only one thing to shoot through Sunset’s mind from his; “ _I love you._ ”

“Aww…” said Pinkie.

“That’s sweet,” smirked Alex.

The kiss broke and the two simply snuggled, chins on each other’s shoulders. “I love you too Flash,” she whispered, tears of joy replacing her tears of sorrow. Then cracking her right eye open, she looked at Flash’s neck and was surprised to find that she wasn’t thirsty. “Wha? Am- Am I cured?”

“Not yet,” said Flash. “But you will be soon.”

“And even if our plan doesn’t succeed, as long as you stay properly hydrated with substances other than blood over the course of the next…” Maxwell checked his watch timer. “…two hours and 45 minutes, you should gain permanent control over your powers and return to a standard vampire’s… for lack of a better term, dietary habits.”

“Which brings us to our plan,” said Vanessa. “We have to destroy Dracula before sunrise today. If we fail, we may lose him and the entire country will become his food. Possibly even the whole continent.”

“Have you figured out how to track him yet?” asked Sunset.

“Partly,” said Jennifer, pulling out a small scrap black cloth. “I found this on the window at the safehouse you and Dracula left through.” Sunset and Twilight both quickly filed that under “ _Phrases I never thought I’d hear_ ”. “It appears to be part of Dracula’s cape. It must’ve torn off when you were making your exit.”

“How does that help us?” asked Rainbow.

“Four words,” said Jennifer. “Okay Google;” Three cell phones (Rainbow’s, Flash’s and Twilight’s) beeped at the command, excluding her own. “Carlos Valdes.” With that, the phones beeped again. Rainbow checked the results of the sudden search and her eyes went wide at the results.

“Ohhhhh-ho-ho-ho-ho… I see what you’re getting at here,” said Rainbow.

“Then would you mind clueing me in?” asked Sunset. Rainbow quickly turned on the blue light filter on her phone and lowered the screen brightness before she handed the device to her friend, letting her read the description that came up; “Carlos David Valdes is an American actor and singer, known for playing the role of Cisco Ramon / Vibe on the CW television series _The Flash_ and other Arrowverse-related series”. “I still don’t get it.”

“Oh for- Cisco’s powers can let him sort of see a person’s actions if he touches something that belongs to them,” said Rainbow, taking her phone back. “And your powers are basically the same as his.”

“Yeah, key-word there being basically,” said Sunset. “We’ve never tried this before.”

“Well, ‘no time like the present’ as they say, eh?” asked Rarity, taking the cloth from Jennifer and giving it a feel in her hands. “And I must say; despite my earlier reservations about the Count’s fashion choice, at least he knows good fabric when he sees it. What is this, cotton?”

“Whatever it is, it’s been around him long enough to be saturated enough with his evil influence that if this plan _does_ work, we’ll be able to end this,” said Jennifer. “Are you willing to try it Sunset?”

“Does me doing it mean ending this madness any sooner?” Her question was answered with a simple nod from Jennifer and the rest of her team, prompting Sunset to extend her right hand. “Give it to me.”

“As you wish Darling,” Rarity balled up the fabric in her hands and gave it a strong toss to Sunset who caught it piece of cake, even when it was just a few inches away from her.

This action surprised Rainbow. “Huh. Man, skills like that and you’re _still_ not on CHS’ baseball team?”

“Not exactly a great runner,” Sunset replied with a shrug. “Anyways, let’s do this.” With that, she activated her geode power. Her eyes glowed white as she suddenly found herself in a busy evening street-corner downtown. Looking around, she saw Dracula walking down the street in a more modern black suit with a red shirt. He looked a lot younger than before actually; no grey flecks in his hair. Looking around, she saw from the signs he was on the corner of Reefside and Brooklyn. Then her vision returned to the church. “Got him. He’s at Reefside and Brooklyn.”

“Did he sense you?” asked Vanessa.

“Actually no,” said Sunset. “Why, is that good?”

“Maybe, but it also gives me an idea,” said Rainbow, remembering an episode from _The Flash_. “Did you happen to see a clock?”

“Uh yeah, someone’s watch,” said Sunset, confused. “Said 3:46. Why?”

Flash checked his watch. “It’s 1:15 now,” he said.

Sunset was stunned as she stood up. “Are you guys telling me I can see into the future?”

“I think that’s exactly what we’re telling you,” said Rainbow.

“Right, so we have 2 hours, 31 minutes to get across town and stop him before we lose his trail,” said Vanessa. “Let’s get to it.” Quickly, they all zipped back out to the van and roared to town. It was a long drive, and even with getting lucky with the lights, they nearly missed their window of time. Thankfully, they made it just as Flash’s watch read 3:40 and scoped out the sidewalk from the now parked van. For the entire duration of the drive and stakeout, Sunset made sure to drink water and energy drinks just to make sure she was ready and help get her vampire side under control.

They watched for a whole six minutes, but there was no sign of him. “Are you sure you saw him here, Sunset?” asked Rainbow.

“Of course I am,” said Sunset. “He’s gotta be here.” With that in mind, she looked back out the van window… coming face-to-face with the monster himself, just as she had seen her in her vision earlier.

“Good evening,” he said with a sadistic smirk. Then he shot his arm in through the window and grabbed Sunset out onto the pavement, scaring some of the civilians away. “You honestly didn’t think I wouldn’t feel you watching me?”

“So you did sense me,” said Sunset as she pulled herself up.

“Naturally,” said Dracula. “I knew you were looking for me somehow. I’m simply surprised you managed to suppress your natural instincts.”

“You’ll have to thank our mutual friends here for that,” said Sunset as the van opened, Vanessa’s team jumping out weapons drawn and locked on Dracula.

“Count Dracula, you are hereby sentenced to holy penance by death by order of Hunt-X,” yelled Vanessa. Dracula just chuckled as he grabbed Sunset by her neck, holding her up as a human shield.

“If you attack me, we both die,” he said. Sunset knew this situation could go a few separate ways depending on how she played her cards and at one instance, she smirked.

“Y’know Count, I was just wondering something,” she said, drawing Dracula’s attention. “Why do we vampires never drink from our own kind?” Dracula was about to ask why she would ask this when she quickly extended her fangs and bit straight into his hand, getting a strong drink.

“Gah!” yelled the vampire king as he dropped her, hissing at the pain in his hand. Sunset meanwhile moaned in enjoyment at the taste.

“Like seriously,” she said, licking her fangs clean. “We taste really good, and we regenerate. Why is this not a thing yet?”

“Sunset, what’re you doing?” asked Maxwell, worried. “I told you that if you don’t drink blood for the allotted three hours, you’ll gain full control.”

“Maybe, but what if I drink the vampire who turned me dry?” asked Sunset, her sclera becoming bloodshot.

“That might actually work,” whispered Twilight.

“You honestly believe you can bring yourself do to it, my servant?” asked Dracula. “Kill your master and lose the great powers he gave you?”

Sunset smirked and gave a chuckle as her irises slowly took on a controlled red gradient and her sclera turned black. “You honestly think I want these powers?” she asked. “Well you’re right; I do. But I only serve my friends and my world. Not some unholy monstrosity like you. And as long as I can rid this world of you, then I’m more than happy. I’m… _satiated._ ” Somehow Dracula was almost scared of Sunset, and for good reason, as she quickly shot over to him and kicked him down the street, sending him tumbling away. As he got up, he cracked his broken bones and dislocated joints back into place, staring back at Sunset with a death-glare.

“Fine then,” he said. “If you will not serve me _here_ , then YOU SHALL IN _HELL_!” With that, he took off flying and grabbed her up into the air.

“Sunset!” yelled Flash.

“Don’t worry,” said Rainbow. “She can handle this.”

“But just in case she can’t… get me my gun,” said Vanessa. “The big one.” Applejack quickly nodded and passed her the Barrett from earlier, this time loaded with holy silver bullets. Giving it a quick cock, she leveled the piece up to the sky, aiming for Dracula as best she could. But then Jason noticed something.

“Wait a sec, where’s my sword?” he asked, looking around.

The two vampires had taken their fight high into town’s skyline, still punching and scratching at each other, trying to bite each other. But at length, Dracula grew bored of hand-to-hand as he punched Sunset away before drawing a large rapier.

“En garde!” he said, pointing the blade at Sunset.

She smirked as she reached into her belt and pulled out a knife she had snagged from Jason, which she then swung to allow it to telescope into a silver rapier with a cross engraved on the blade. “Aller!” With that, the two began in a massive swordfight with neither party allowing the other any room to quarter. Finally, the two locked blades and Sunset had her face right in front of his.

“Hey wait! Wait-wait-wait, do you hear that?” she asked.

“Hear what?” Dracula was clearly nearing the breaking point as of now.

“That crunching noise?” Sunset quickly shot her face into his, breaking his nose and making him back away from her in pain. With that, she quickly stabbed her sword straight through his stomach getting in his face again with a cocky smirk.

“Touché,” he growled, but smirked grabbing her face. “I believe your three hours from that formula are up.” And he was right; Sunset could feel her vampire mind clawing for freedom and control of the body, prompting her to quickly look down at the team.

“Twilight?” asked Flash.

“With gusto,” she replied simply, surrounding him in her telekinesis and tossing him up to the two vampires. Once at their altitude, he quickly drew his machetes and stabbed them down into Dracula’s shoulders, making him cry out in pain.

“No! This can’t be! I am immortal! I am Dracula!” the vampire growled. Flash just spun around and pulled a hand-carved oak stake out of his jacket.

“I don’t care,” he said and stabbed it straight through Dracula’s heart. He was expecting it to kill the monster, but it apparently only paralyzed him. Though it was enough of a shock for Sunset’s human form to take back over before they all started falling toward the ground.

“Sunset, in case we don’t make it out of this alive, I just want to say I’ve actually loved you from the first moment I saw you!” Flash yelled as they fell. “And it hurt me physically to break up with you!”

“I was just about to say the same thing!” said Sunset. “Right before ‘Kiss me, you idiot’!” Flash didn’t need to be told twice as he quickly pulled his face to hers and they kissed before they both blacked out, knowing that this would probably be their last night on Earth.

**Sorry if this didn’t exactly meet expectations. I’m not too good at writing long fight-sequences. I prefer swift action. Anyways, this is almost over. One more chapter and the legacy of Count Dracula can finally be ended.**


	10. Aftermath

Sunset woke up to find a bright light shining on her, and when she looked at it, she saw what looked like golden gates in the clouds.

“Princess Celestia?” she asked weakly. Her questioning mind-frame was shattered when she felt someone’s arm fall around her waist. Quickly looking, she saw she was in a bed… with Flash. Normally she would’ve jumped up and screamed, but something about his strong embrace made her feel safer.

“Well now,” Sunset’s ears quickly caught onto Applejack’s voice, her eyes following suit and locking onto the country girl herself. “Looks like ole Sunny’s awake.”

“Ugh,” Sunset groaned as she felt herself get up. “Where are we?”

“Your house,” said Rainbow as the girls gathered around the bed. “You and Flash both blacked out after he shish-kebabbed Dracula. And- now hold on, because you might’ve misheard me. You _might’ve_ heard me say ‘Flash _attacked_ Dracula’. What I actually _said_ was… ‘Flash _shish-kebabbed_ Dracula’! It was freaking. **Amazing!** ”

“Before you started plummetin’ to yer deaths,” said Applejack bluntly.

“Well yeah, before that,” said Rainbow, her excitement subsiding.

“And we survived?” asked Sunset.

“You almost didn’t,” said Twilight. “You were falling so fast I barely had time to catch you before you hit the pavement.”

“So wait… Dracula’s dead? Like- like _dead_ -dead?” asked Sunset.

“Ancient history,” Pinkie smiled jovially. “Vanessa and Alex saw to that personally. You should’ve seen it; they even referenced _Boondock Saints_ when they were giving him the last two shots.”

“So… how do you feel darling?” asked Rarity.

Sunset was just about to answer when her stomach audibly growled. Once that subsided for the moment, she smiled. “Truth be told? I’ve never been hungrier.” That one phrase was more than enough to convince her friends that the old Sunset was back. With that in mind, they allowed Flash to sleep as they all went into Sunset’s kitchen and sat down, helping themselves to a simple breakfast. “So where’s Vanessa anyway?”

“She and her team said they were going to the Philippines to celebrate,” said Twilight. “And after all that their families have been through? I’d say they earned this.” Then Rainbow’s phone started ringing. Quickly she checked it.

“Ah, it’s my dad,” she said. “Sorry, I gotta take this.”

“Go ahead,” said Sunset, allowing Rainbow to get up and take the call.

“Hey Dad,” she said. “Yeah-yeah, I know I’m the best. As much as I like all these reminders, I already know. Anyway, what’s up? … Wait, what? A-Are you serious? W-Well yeah, duh. Of course, we’re gonna take it. You think we’d pass up something this golden? What? Oh yeah, of course, we’ll be over soon. Uh-huh. Alright, love you too Dad. Yeah. Bye.” With that, she hung up and jumped up into the air, giving a happy laugh.

“What was that all about?” asked Twilight.

“Well, you’re never gonna believe this but some guy just showed up on my doorstep,” said Rainbow. “Said he was from a recording agency and he wanted to offer the Rainbooms a record deal.”

“Wait, seriously?” asked Sunset. “You mean we could actually make some money off our music?”

“That’s what record deals are all about, SunShim,” said Rainbow. “So what do you guys say? Are we in?”

“Depends,” said Twilight. “When do we start recording?”

“Right after graduation,” said Rainbow, remembering that the CHS graduation ceremony was in two weeks. “We get our diplomas, and we’re in the recording booth.”

“Sounds great,” said Sunset. “And what timing too. Much as I’m going to miss CHS, there’s a lot more of this world that I want to explore.”

“Then we’re agreed,” said Rainbow. “Once we graduate, the Rainbooms are making headlines across the globe.” The others all cheered in agreement with that. Today Canterlot, tomorrow the world…

**Author's Note:**

> At the end of most of these chapters, I'll be explaining the backstory of characters I mention; starting with Quincy P. Morris; basically a living personification of Texas (with Lucy Westenra {who I’ll get to at a later date} even saying he’s from there, making things even funnier later on) and upon reading his letter to psychologist Dr. John Seward in chapter 5, we readers learn that Mr. Bram Stoker had never spoken to an American in his life, let alone a Texan and especially not before he wrote Dracula.


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